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The ''1961 Dixie 400'' was a NASCAR Grand National Series (now Sprint Cup Series) event that was held on September 17, 1961 at Atlanta International Raceway in Hampton, Georgia. Seven automobile manufacturers from the United States would demonstrate their fastest stock car vehicles in an attempt to impress new vehicle sales on Monday. Homologation rules during this era only allowed drivers to bring vehicles that are street-legal and driver to the track directly by the competing driver(s). A filming of a full-length feature Hollywood film entitled ''Thundering Wheels'' was a part of the festivities planned for this racing event in addition to a 210-minute performance by some of the legendary performers from the Grand Ole Opry.〔(''Dixie 400 Entries Pour into Atlanta ) at Star-News (Google News Archive Search)〕 Local beauty pageant personality Linda Vaughn was chosen to be the queen of the 1961 running of the Dixie 400.〔(AMS' last September race cause for late celebration ) at NASCAR.com〕 ==Summary== Fireball Roberts would immediately awe the spectators during solo qualifying sessions driving at speeds up to in order to clinch the pole position. In contrast to these amazing speeds, the average speed of the race was . While Fireball Roberts, Nelson Stacy and Banjo Matthews would dominate the earliest parts of this event, the closing moments were a constant struggle between Junior Johnson and David Pearson.〔(''1961 Dixie 400'' racing information ) at Racing Reference〕 These drivers had the monopoly on the first-place position throughout the race; tying with the 1960 Atlanta 500 with the least amount of lead changes. In this 267-lap racing event, the duration between the first green flag and the checkered flag was approximately three hours and eleven minutes. There were 42 qualifying American-born drivers on the grid out of the 46 who originally qualified for this event.〔 Tommy Irwin would suffer from a bad piston in his vehicle that prevented him from starting the race; he was credited as the last-place finisher. Lee Reitzel would be the lowest-finishing driver to complete the entire event while Banjo Matthew's faulty engine prevented him from finishing in the "top ten." Thirty thousand people would eventually see David Pearson defeat Junior Johnson by a time of five seconds.〔 NASCAR originally made a bad judgement call and declared Bunkie Blackburn the winner. The reason behind this bad call was that one of David Pearson's laps were never officially counted; they decided to re-mark it as official. Most of the spectators had left by the time that Pearson was given the actual win, making this race very controversial to both Blackburn and Pearson alike.〔 Individual earnings for each driver ranged from the winner's share of $9,330 ($ when adjusted for inflation) to the last-place finisher's share of $200 ($ when adjusted for inflation). The total prize purse for this event was $39,960 ($ when adjusted for inflation).〔(Racing information for the ''1961 Dixie 400'' ) at Fantasy Racing Cheat Sheet〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1961 Dixie 400」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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