1972 NASCAR Winston Cup Series

The 1972 NASCAR Winston Cup Series was the 24th season of

• Winston Western 500: Petty makes his debut under STP sponsorship.
• Texas World Speedway held two NASCAR races for the only time.

Race summaries

• Western 500
  Purolator
  Mercury but fell out with transmission failure. Allison started 16th but stormed through the field and led 102 laps before falling to second at the end. Fog shortened the race to 149 laps as Petty led 37 of the final 39 laps, driving for the final time in an all-blue racecar.

• Daytona 500 Foyt was unchallenged after Petty fell out with engine failure 80 laps into the 500 and cruised to his only Daytona 500 win and first win at the track since 1965. Petty led 31 laps, Foyt 167, and Bobby Allison led two, indicative of the slump in competitive depth of the series with the withdrawal of the factories from participation. Bobby Isaac won the pole in Harry Hyde's Dodge but the engine soured on the start and Isaac finished 33rd, while Buddy Baker crashed with Walter Ballard, who flipped in the trioval grass.

• Richmond 500 Petty, Allison, and Isaac led all 500 laps and finished 1-2-3; Isaac though was seven laps down while Dave Marcis and Bill Dennis finished in the top five, both at least twelve laps down.

• Miller 500 Ontario Motor Speedway hosted NASCAR for the second straight year and the battle was between Foyt, Petty, Baker, Allison, and Isaac, while West Coast ace Ray Elder and Benny Parsons also led. 51 cars started with over 30 additional entries sent home after qualifying. Isaac crashed with Mark Donohue 45 laps in ("it's a new car and it's totaled out," said the dejected Isaac) while Petty lost a lap on a botched pitstop; he push-drafted Baker and Allison to keep them challenging Foyt ("Foyt was ridiculously faster than my Chevy down the straights," Allison said), but the #21 was too much and Foyt took what would be his final NASCAR win.

• Carolina 500
  North Carolina Motor Speedway after changing tires following qualifying. He stormed through the field to lead 260 laps, but at Lap 345 his engine failed. Isaac led 210 laps for the win, only his third big-track Grand National win and what would be his final career Grand National win. The race occurred two days following the birth of future cup champion Matt Kenseth
  .

• Atlanta 500 Working to solve the engine issues plaguing the team,
  Union aviation oil for the #12's engines. Bobby Allison won the pole and engaged in a race-long duel with Bobby Isaac; he escaped a hard crash with Ron Keselowski. Late in the race A. J. Foyt stormed to the front but Allison grabbed the lead with four laps to go and edged Foyt and Isaac for the first superspeedway win for Chevrolet
  in some eight years.

• Rebel 400 The
  Indycar commitments. Pearson responded by leading 202 laps and winning for the first time since March 1971. Richard Petty finished a lap down in second; the 1-2 finish began one of the most celebrated periods in NASCAR history. Bobby Allison led 29 laps but finished a very distant (15 laps down) seventh. Joe Frasson
  finished third.

• Gwyn Staley 400 Petty, Allison, and Bobby Isaac dominated the race and finished 1-2-3. Petty led the last 25 laps after a late tire change where his team put on "gumballs" (softer compound tires). The racing between the three became heated during the day, Petty calling it "a wing-doolie" of a race.

• Virginia 500 The Wood Brothers usually entered only at Martinsville for a short track effort and David Pearson led 102 laps but his transmission broke while leading and he was done with thirty laps to go; he still finished eighth. Bobby Allison won the pole and led 27 laps to finish second; Bobby Isaac led 268 laps but blew his engine while leading and finished 19th. As a result Richard Petty despite being on seven cylinders had his fourth win of the season.

• Winston 500 The lead changed 53 times as Isaac, Pearson, Buddy Baker, and Petty battled with Fred Lorenzen, driving a Hoss Ellington #28. Bobby Allison
  led early but fell out with engine failure. Petty cut a tire late and lost a lap, and coming to the white flag Isaac was sideslammed by lapped traffic, giving Pearson the lead for the win, his second in the Wood Brothers Mercury.

• World 600 Bobby Allison won the pole (the second straight 600 pole for the racecar owned by track promoter Richard Howard) and led 239 laps, but blew both right side tires with 30 laps to go and Buddy Baker took the win. Richard Petty and Bobby Isaac fell out with engine failures as did Wendell Scott, driving a second Chevrolet out of Junior Johnson
  's shop.

• Mason-Dixon 500 Allison and Petty finished 1-2 after leading 492 of 500 laps; Benny Parsons and Dean Dalton
  were the only other leaders.

• Motor State 400 David Pearson led 154 laps in an easy win, finishing sixteen seconds ahead of Bobby Allison and half a lap ahead of Richard Petty. Pete Hamilton
  drove a Jim Ruggles Plymouth and raced with the leaders before falling out in the final 50 laps.

• Lone Star 500 Petty battled Bobby Isaac in 100-degree heat at Texas World Speedway before Isaac faltered and Petty beat Bobby Allison by a full lap; Petty held a slender point lead over James Hylton, who had come under fire earlier in the season for leading the points race despite finishing behind Petty and Allison almost every race. Privateer Richard Childress was involved in a bizarre crash when he spun in Leonard Faustina's oil and flipped into a ditch.

• David Pearson, Petty, and Allison. Petty tried to muscle past Pearson up high on the homestretch but came six feet short, with Allison hard on Pearson's trunk at the stripe. Coo Coo Marlin
  finished fourth after being briefly detained by Daytona police three days prior when a bar brawl accidentally swept up Marlin's wife Eula Faye.