1964 Wilkes 400

The 1964 Wilkes 400 was a NASCAR Grand National Series (now Sprint Cup Series, also formerly known as the Winston Cup Series and the Winston Cup Grand National Series) event that took place on October 11, 1964, at North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina.^[2]

Summary

This race took two hours and forty-four minutes to successfully complete with stock cars reaching speeds of 91.398 miles per hour (147.091 km/h).^[2]Marvin Panch managed to defeat Fred Lorenzen by a time of 5.8 seconds.^[2] Two cautions were given for 28 laps in front of twelve thousand live spectators.^[2] Junior Johnson qualified for the pole position for this race with a solo speed of 100.761 miles per hour (162.159 km/h).^[2] Buddy Arrington and Doug Cooper failed to make any prize winnings for their respective 31st and 32nd place finishes.^[2] They crashed into each other at lap 2 of the 400-lap race.^[2]

Mark Hurley would retire from the NASCAR Grand National Series after the conclusion of this event; taking his 1963 Ford Galaxie to its final 400 miles of racing action. The winner would walk away with a grand total of $3,225 in winnings ($24,523.15 when adjusted for inflation) while the bottom two finishers walked away with nothing.^[3]

The race car drivers still had to commute to the races using the same stock cars that competed in a typical weekend's race through a policy of homologation (and under their own power). This policy was in effect until roughly 1975. By 1980, NASCAR had completely stopped tracking the year model of all the vehicles and most teams did not take stock cars to the track under their own power anymore.

Top twenty finishers

References