Check out this link below to the last lap of the 1979 Daytona 500 -- a race that is generally regarded as the turning point in the history of NASCAR, when it changed from a regional sport to a national spectacle.
There were several factors that made this an epic race:
1. It was the first Daytona 500 televised nationally in its entirety. CBS signed the contract to televise the race as an afterthought. February is usually a "dead" time in the sports calendar, and they were just looking for something to broadcast during the period between the Super Bowl and the start of the NCAA basketball tournament and Major League Baseball.
2. The race featured the epic brawl alongside the track between the two drivers leading the race at the end: Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison. They crashed just before the end, and the driver then running in third place (Richard Petty) passed them both to win.
3. The story made the front page of the New York Times, which was highly unusual for ANY sports story -- let alone an auto race in a league that had been regarded as a "redneck sport" up until then.
I bring all of this up to make a point:
Notice how far behind the leaders Richard Petty was before he passed them on the last lap. The reports I saw on this race indicated that he was at least half a lap -- about a mile and a half -- behind the two leaders when the crash occurred.
NASCAR had seen too many races like this over the years, where a few cars dominate the field and there isn't much doubt about the outcome. A lot of the rule changes in recent years like restrictor plates and the elimination of races ending under yellow flags were simply intended to make these races more interesting to the spectators.
Bobby Allison’s side of it:
https://altdriver.com/racing/nascar-daytona-500-bobby-allison-cale-yarborough/
Pretty funny (given that no one was seriously hurt.)
But, yeah, I understand what you are saying.