lead from LeeRoy and never looked back as he won his first Daytona 500 by 1.3 seconds. 1969 : Having learned from the previous year, LeeRoy Yarbrough would use the same slingshot treatment out of turn 3 on Charlie Glotzbach, to score the victory on the final lap. 1971: Richard Petty becomes the first three-time winner, including the 1964 and 1966 races. Through 2015, only 5 drivers have won 3 or more Daytona 500s. 1972: A. J. Foyt cruised into the lead on lap 80 and stayed there through the 200 lap race, lapping the entire field. Foyt beat second-place Charlie Glotzbach by nearly two laps, with Jim Vandiver finishing 6 laps down in third. 1973: Richard Petty becomes the first four-time winner, including the 1964, 1966 and 1971 races . Through 2015, only Petty (7 total) and Cale Yarborough have won at least 4 Daytona 500s. 1974: During the start of the 1974 NASCAR season, many races had their distance cut ten percent in response to the 1973 oil crisis. As a result, the 1974 Daytona 500 was shortened to 180 laps (450 miles), as symbolically, the race "started" on lap 21. Richard Petty became the first of only 4 drivers (as of 2021) to win consecutive Daytona 500s, while also setting a mark of 5 total wins. 1976: In the 1976 race, Richard Petty was leading on the last lap when he was passed on the backstretch by David Pearson. Petty tried to turn under Pearson coming off the final corner but didn't clear Pearson. The contact caused the drivers to spin into the grass in the infield just short of the finish line. Petty's car didn't start, but Pearson was able to keep his car running and limp over the finish line for the win. Many fans consider this finish to be the greatest in the history of NASCAR. 1979: The 1979 race was the first Daytona 500 to be broadcast live on national television, airing on CBS, whose audience was increased in much of the Eastern and Midwestern USA due to a blizzard. (The Indianapolis 500 was only broadcast on tape delay that evening in this era; most races were broadcast only through the final quarter to half of the race, as was the procedure for ABC's Championship Auto Racing broadcasts; with the new CBS contract, the network and NASCAR agreed to a full live broadcast.)