I caught the first 40 mins. of the Daytona 500 taping from 1979 on ESPN Classic on Thursday and from what I saw, it was good racing. I didn't realize how good it could be. There was a lot of passing and they were still running real close to each other and making nifty moves. I wish I could've watched the whole 2 hrs. that Classic had but I had to go to work. But anyways, I was just surprised that it was producing good racing without the plates back in the 1970s.

To the older folks here, was it really that good racing always? I always have believed that the racing back then wasn't as good b/c you had less people competing for a win and less parity.

When Elliot at Dega could come back from two laps behind under green at a big track like that,that was racing!

No...racing back then, you had only a few cars that could win on a given day, not like today where over half the field could win.
Racing from the past has been glorified on the internet, but in reality, there were few cars that could win on a regularly.

Yeah, it was awesome to watch ned win by 14 laps ahead of everybody else at darlington!!!

Not that was a race!!!

I'll take the racing from the 60's - 70's over today.  I liked the cars better, I liked the drivers better and I liked the racing better.  Today all the cars are the same, the driver's are corporate prima donnas and the racing has become controlled by the sponsors.  You can't race someone hard, you have to give back laps and you have to present a corporate presence at all times.   The excitement just isn't there anymore.

the show is better today,

the racing was better yesterday.