In a record-setting season, one race stood above all for NASCAR Hall of Fame (NHOF) nominee Bobby Isaac. Despite setting a still-standing NASCAR record with 19 pole awards and winning a career-high 17 races, Isaac most cherished his 1969 season-ending victory at Texas World Speedway.

The two-mile track in College Station, Texas, was built as a ‘sister track’ to Michigan International Speedway, which also hosted its first NASCAR premier series race in 1969.  Its inaugural race, the Texas 500, was dominated by NHOF nominee Buddy Baker who led 150 laps in a Cotton Owens owned Dodge.  Baker coughed up the potential victory, however, when he crashed under caution trying to read the pit board with 21 laps remaining. Isaac was in position to snatch the win, and led 19 of the final 21 laps to end the season in Victory Lane. 

While the win was the 20th in Isaac’s short career, it was his first full-length race win at a track larger than one mile.

“We won a lot of short-track races, but we couldn’t pull it all together on the big tracks until the last race of the season at Texas,” Isaac told Greg Fielden for NASCAR: The Complete History. “That win was my biggest moment in racing.”

The momentum built by Isaac and crew chief Harry Hyde, also a NHOF nominee, carried over to 1970 when the pair won their only NASCAR championship.  Despite reaching the pinnacle of the sport, Isaac never lost sight of his Texas World Speedway win.

“Winning the championship gave me personal satisfaction, but I’d rank it second to the Texas win,” Isaac said. “The way I look at it, it took me seven years to win a superspeedway race and only three years to win the championship.”

Starting in 1963, Isaac ran parts of seven seasons before his Texas win. He didn’t try to run full-time for a championship until 1968.