1971 Motor Trend 500


The 1971 Motor Trend 500 was the first race in NASCAR's Winston Cup era that took place on January 10, 1971. 191 laps on a road course at Riverside International Raceway in Riverside, California that spanned a total distance of.
Attendance was estimated at 23,000. It took four hours, fifty-seven minutes, and fifty-five seconds.
Due to a then-struggling economy, both Ford and Chevrolet cut back on factory support for the 1971 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season. NASCAR would also limit engines in the aerodynamic superspeedway cars to 305 cubic inches starting in this race.

Race report

Defending NASCAR Grand National West series champion Ray Elder won the race; making it the first time that the 500-mile event at Riverside was won by a manufacturer other than Ford. The average speed was while the pole speed was. This race was the final NASCAR Cup Series event with triple-digit numbered cars; with three of them qualifying for the race.. Elder became the first winner in NASCAR's "modern" history.
Only 11 cars finished this 5-hour marathon. The 8th-place finisher was 22 laps down, and the 11th-place finisher dropped out with 34 laps to go. The top prize at this race was $18,715 and the prize for finishing last was $1,015. Richard Petty competed in this race but failed to finish; he would end up in 20th after starting from the pole position. The majority of the drivers who failed to finish had an engine problem. 43-year-old Hershel McGriff entered and raced a Cup race for the first time since 1954, when he won a Grand National race at North Wilkesboro in an Oldsmobile, back when he was 26. McGriff would qualify in 8th and finish 12th.
Harry Hyde and Dale Inman were notable crew chiefs for this event; working for Richard Petty and fourth-place finisher Bobby Isaac.
At the end of the race, the margin between Elder and Bobby Allison was ten and a half seconds. Ray Elder would score the first of his two NASCAR cup victories here. This race was Ron Grable's only start in the NASCAR Cup series and that G.T. Tallas finished the race with his career best of 11th place.

Qualifying

Finishing order

  1. Ray Elder
  2. Bobby Allison
  3. Benny Parsons
  4. Bobby Isaac
  5. James Hylton
  6. Friday Hassler
  7. Kevin Terris
  8. Carl Joiner
  9. Henley Gray
  10. Cecil Gordon
  11. G.T. Tallas
  12. Hershel McGriff
  13. Bob England
  14. Dick Kranzler
  15. J.D. McDuffie
  16. Dick Bown
  17. Elmo Langley
  18. Jack McCoy
  19. Ron Gautsche
  20. Richard Petty
  21. John Soares, Jr.
  22. Frank James
  23. Ron Grable
  24. Dick Guldstrad
  25. Jimmy Insolo
  26. Bill Champion
  27. Bob Kauf
  28. Paul Dorrity
  29. Jerry Oliver
  30. Frank Warren
  31. Mike Kittlekow
  32. Ray Johnstone
  33. Don Noel
  34. Glenn Francis
  35. David Pearson
  36. Joe Clark
  37. Harry Schilling
  38. Roy Collins
  39. Ivan Baldwin
  40. Pat Fay

    Timeline

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