The 1971 USAC National Dirt Car Championship was the first season of the newly formed USAC National Dirt Car Championship. It was created after dirt races were dropped from the schedule of the USAC Championship Car series after the 1970 season.[1]

Technical rules

The existing USAC National Championship was a mixture of road courses, hill climbs and paved or dirt oval races. For the 1971 season this championship switched exclusively to paved ovals. Especially on the paved ovals rear-engined cars dominated the races whereas on the dirt ovals the front-engined cars were superior.

The cars' construction mainly stayed with front engines as established after World War II. The cars with wheelbase of at least 96 inches. Overhead camshaft engines were restricted to 256.284 cubic inches (4.2 liters) and stock block engine could use up to 305.1 cubic inches (5.0 liters).

Schedule and results

The season consisted of four 100 mile dirt races.[2]

Rnd Date Track Location Winning Driver
1 June 20 Nazareth National Speedway Nazareth, Pennsylvania Jim McElreath
2 August 22 Illinois State Fairgrounds Springfield, Illinois A.J. Foyt
3 September 6 Du Quoin State Fairgrounds Du Quoin, Illinois George Snider
4 September 11 Indiana State Fairgrounds Indianapolis, Indiana Al Unser

Final point standings

The driver's championship was won by George Snider of 26 classified drivers. The entrants championships went to the #4 car of Leader Card, Inc. [3]

Pos Driver Points
1 George Snider 520
2 Jim McElreath 420
3 A.J. Foyt 360
4 Bill Vukovich II 360
5 Don Hawley 340
6 Arnie Knepper 320
7 Al Unser 230
8 Bob Harkey 210
9 Larry Dickson 170
10 Bill Puterbaugh 170

References

  1. "1971 USAC DIRT CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON REVIEW".
  2. "USAC Record Book".
  3. "USAC Record Book".
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.