40 American-born drivers qualified for the race. Drivers who failed to qualify were David Ray Boggs, Jimmy Crawford and Elmo Langley. Forty-two thousand people attended. The race's average speed was 118.275 miles per hour (190.345 km/h) in this 253-minute race. David Pearson's qualifying speed of 137.258 miles per hour or 220.895 kilometres per hour won the pole position. There were four cautions for a of 35 laps. 20 different drivers lead the race. Bobby Allison would defeat Richard Petty by two laps; resulting in Richard Petty's 100th runner up finish.[2]
Ron Hutcherson was the last-place finisher of this event; with a racing accident on lap 29 out of 492. Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, and David Pearson dominated the closing laps of this race.[2] Pete Hamilton scored his final top-5 finish.[2] This was his final start of 1972 and he would only make two further starts in 1973, both of which ended in DNFs
Rewards for this race were $19,400 for the winner ($141,310 when adjusted for inflation) while the last-place finisher brought home $550 ($4,006 when adjusted for inflation). A grand total of $89,450 was offered to the race. ($651,555 when adjusted for inflation).[4]
Bobby Allison's win at this event would become the tenth win of the 1972 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season.[5] Due to the cash crunch of the 1970s, only five individual owners could afford to employ a NASCAR Cup Series driver for the rest; the rest were all "proper" NASCAR teams with more than one person running them.[6]