The 1972 Carolina 500 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series race that took place on March 12, 1972, at North Carolina Motor Speedway in Rockingham, North Carolina.
ABC tape-delayed coverage of this race until March 18, 1972, when it was shown as ABC Championship Auto Racing and abbreviated to 90 minutes including commercials.
Race report
The race took place on a paved track spanning , it took four hours and twenty-three minutes to complete all 492 laps of the race. Bobby Isaac defeated Richard Petty by at one lap in front of 42500 people; marking his final career win. Isaac would earn the pole position with a qualifying speed of . Meanwhile, the average race speed was . Eight cautions slowed the race for 57 laps. Jimmy Vandiver finished in 3rd place with a ragtag crew of repairmen who had never worked a NASCAR race before and were assembled just hours before the race began; he improved on his qualifying position of 16th place even though he was unable to lead any laps.
Baker only added this race at the last minute because there were so few other big teams. Baker broke a valve Spring in his 426 wedge and fell out early. Allison dominated the first half of the race and then blew up. Petty had several cut tires and finally broke a rear spring. That left Issac who was running a highly restricted 426 Hemi a clear path to the win.
British-born competitor Jackie Oliver finished in last place due to an engine issue on the first lap while Canadian-born Les Covey would fail to finish due to a clutch problem on lap 127. The rest of the 40-car grid was American-born drivers. NASCAR noticed that Allison's car had right side tires on the left side and vice versa after qualifying and told Junior to switch them, he wouldn't because NASCAR didn't even look at any other team, so they put the car in the back to start.
Neil Castles would record his final top ten in his NASCAR Cup Series career.
Notable crew chiefs at this race; included Harry Hyde, Dale Inman, Tom Vandiver and Lee Gordon.
Qualifying
Finishing order
Section reference:
Bobby Isaac (No. 71) Richard Petty (No. 43) Jim Vandiver (No. 31) LeeRoy Yarbrough (No. 45) Dave Marcis (No. 2) James Hylton (No. 48) Benny Parsons (No. 72) Buddy Arrington (No. 67) Elmo Langley (No. 64) Neil Castles (No. 06) Larry Smith (No. 92) Joe Frasson (No. 18) Jabe Thomas (No. 25) Ed Negre (No. 8) Ben Arnold (No. 76) John Sears (No. 4) David Ray Boggs (No. 57) Dean Dalton (No. 7) Frank Warren (No. 79) Henley Gray (No. 19) H.B. Bailey (No. 53) George Altheide (No. 0) Richard D. Brown (No. 91) Charlie Roberts (No. 77) Ron Keselowski (No. 88) Cecil Gordon* (No. 24) Bobby Allison* (No. 12) Johnny Halford* (No. 32) Bill Champion* (No. 10) G.C. Spencer* (No. 49) Bill Shirey* (No. 74) Walter Ballard* (No. 65) Les Covey* (No. 89) Buddy Baker* (No. 11) Raymond Williams* (No. 47) Buck Baker* (No. 93) Richard Childress* (No. 96) Dub Simpson* (No. 51) Bobby Mausgrover* (No. 00) Jackie Oliver* (No. 90)