1979 USAC Championship Car season

1979 American Championship Car season
Series  : USAC Championship Car
Champion : A. J. Foyt
Previous: 1978	Next: 1980

The 1979 USAC Championship Car season consisted of seven races, beginning in Ontario, California on March 25 and concluding in West Allis, Wisconsin on August 12. The USAC National Champion was A. J. Foyt and the Indianapolis 500 winner was Rick Mears. With the exception of the Indianapolis 500, most top drivers instead competed in races sanctioned by CART.

Schedule and results

All races running on Oval/Speedway.

Rnd	Date	Race Name	Length	Track	Pole Position	Winning Driver
1	March 25	Datsun Twin 200	200 mi (322 km)	Ontario Motor Speedway	A. J. Foyt	A. J. Foyt
2	April 8	Coors 200	200 mi (322 km)	Texas World Speedway	A. J. Foyt	A. J. Foyt
3	May 27	International 500 Mile Sweepstakes	500 mi (805 km)	Indianapolis Motor Speedway	Rick MearsA	Rick MearsA
4	June 10	Rex Mays Classic	150 mi (241 km)	Wisconsin State Fair Park Speedway	A. J. Foyt	A. J. Foyt
5	June 24	Music 500 at Pocono	500 mi (805 km)	Pocono International Raceway	A. J. Foyt	A. J. Foyt
6	August 5	Lubrilon Grand Prix	200 mi (322 km)	Texas World Speedway	A. J. Foyt	A. J. Foyt
7	August 12	Tony Bettenhausen 200	200 mi (322 km)	Wisconsin State Fair Park Speedway	Tom Bigelow	Roger McCluskey

^A  Non-USAC driver.

Final points standings

The CART driver not eligible for points.

Pos Driver ONT TXS1 INDY MIL1 POC TXS2 MIL2 Pts 1 A. J. Foyt 1* 1* 2 1* 1* 1* 12* 3320 2 Bill Vukovich, Jr. 3 6 8 2 6 6 3 1770 3 Tom Bigelow 6 12 14 3 8 2 2 1305 4 Larry Dickson 16 3 24 4 3 11 DNQ 1225 5 Gary Bettenhausen 18 2 DNQ 6 9 5 6 1008 6 Jim McElreath 9 14 35 2 9 DNQ 975 7 Jerry Sneva 21 13 31 5 4 12 10 851 8 Dick Simon 7 26 13 5 7 17 766 9 Roger McCluskey 12 13 17 14 4 1 716 10 Sheldon Kinser 4 8 28 15 15 3 14 673 11 Cliff Hucul 5 4 29 7 11 16 19 653 12 Howdy Holmes 7 7 600 13 Johnny Parsons, Jr. 2 16 32 14 21 4 598 14 George Snider 8 5 33 18 25 11 361 15 Janet Guthrie DNQ 34 19 5 225 16 Frank Weiss 20 DNQ 8 23 7 218 17 Tony Bettenhausen, Jr. 9 DNQ 9 13 13 15 185 18 Dana Carter 10 DNQ 11 22 10 165 19 Phil Threshie 17 16 16 8 153 20 Al Loquasto DNQ 10 150 21 Todd Gibson 14 7 DNQ 130 22 Jerry Karl DNS 10 DNQ 12 17 14 18 113 23 Herm Johnson 8 100 24 Eldon Rasmussen 11 15 23 20 85 25 Jerry Miller DNQ 9 80 26 Roger Rager DNQ 10 DNP 15 16 65 27 Dick Fergusson 17 11 DSQ 48 28 John Martin 15 DNQ 18 30 29 Bob Harkey 19 DNQ 24 23 30 Bill Puterbaugh DNQ 19 13 10 31 Ken Nichols 13 10 32 Jan Sneva DNQ 20 8 - Rick Mears 1 0 - Mike Mosley 3 0 - Danny Ongais 4 12 0 - Bobby Unser 5* 0 - Gordon Johncock 6 0 - Tom Bagley 9 0 - Spike Gehlhausen 10 0 - Steve Krisiloff 11 0 - Salt Walther 12 0 - Tom Sneva 15 0 - Joe Saldana 16 0 - Johnny Rutherford 18 0 - Larry Rice 19 0 - Pancho Carter 20 0 - Vern Schuppan 21 0 - Al Unser 22 0 - John Mahler 25 0 - Wally Dallenbach 27 0 - Lee Kunzman 30 0 - Larry McCoy DNQ DNQ 0 - Bill Alsup DNQ 0 - Neil Bonnett DNQ 0 - Earle Canavan DNQ 0 - Larry Cannon DNQ 0 - Bill Engelhart DNQ 0 - Ed Finley DNQ 0 - Woody Fisher DNQ 0 - Tom Frantz DNQ 0 - Hurley Haywood DNQ 0 - Jim Hurtubise DNQ 0 - Jan Opperman DNQ 0 - Billy Scott DNQ 0 - Blaine Sneva DNQ 0 - Jim Putnam DNP 0 Pos Driver ONT TXS1 INDY MIL1 POC TXS2 MIL2 Pts

Color Result Gold Winner Silver 2nd place Bronze 3rd place Green 4th & 5th place Light Blue 6th-10th place Dark Blue Finished (Outside Top 10) Purple Did not finish (Ret) Red Did not qualify (DNQ) Brown Withdrawn (Wth) Black Disqualified (DSQ) White Did not start (DNS) Blank Did not participate (DNP) Not competing In-line notation Bold Pole position Italics Ran fastest race lap * Led most race laps Rookie of the Year Rookie

References

• Åberg, Andreas. "USAC National Championship 1979". Driver Database. Archived

from the original on 2009-05-13. http://www.driverdb.com/standings/980-1979/. Retrieved 2009-05-11. 

• "1979 USAC National Championship Trail". ChampCarStats.com. Archived

from the original on 2009-05-13. http://www.champcarstats.com/year/1979u.htm. Retrieved 2009-05-11. 

• http://media.indycar.com/pdf/2011/IICS_2011_Historical_Record_Book_INT6.pdf (p. 212-213)

See also

• 1979 Indianapolis 500
• 1979 IndyCar season

This page uses some content from Wikipedia. The original article was at 1979 USAC Championship Car season. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Autopedia, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.