In the history of auto racing has their ever been a deadheat?

Question

I am looking more at major racing series rather than small local short track races.

Answer 1

Pegs is right about the qualifying dead heat, the 1997 European GP at the Nurburgring, Jacques  Villneuve had pole, 2nd Micheal Schumcer, 3rd Heinz Harold Frenzen, rightly said, chosen positions due to Vilneuve setting the time first.

The nearest thing to a dead heat in F1 racing was the 1971 Italian GP, Peter Gethins BRM beating Ronnie Petersons March by a whopping 0.01 seconds!

Answer 2

If you are talking NASCAR, CART, IRL, USAC, and/or F-1, no.  They have always found a way of determining a race winner.  The very first Daytona 500 took 3 days to determine a winner.  I don't know of any other races (right off the top of my head) that have been that close, that HAVEN'T been decided by electronic scoring.  It seems as thought most of the really, really close finishes (within 0.5 seconds) have happened since the inclusion of electronic timing and scoring in the major sanctioning bodies.

Answer 3

At Le Mans in 1966 the Ford GT40 MK IIs wanted to stage a "photo op" for the finish. 3 of them were lined up to cross the line together. The No. 1 Shelby American (Miles and Hulme) was leading at the time. When it slowed to let the No. 2 car catch up, they didn't realize they were giving away the win. Since the No.2 car started farther back, it was credited with traveling a greater distance, giving McLaren and Amon the win.

Answer 4

Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch at Darlington a few years back was almost a dead heat.  That was the greatest finish ever!

Answer 5

this wasn't a race, but it was qualifying in F1. i believe it was schumacher, hakkinen and 1 other driver who all qualified with the same time to the 1000th of a second. schui got pole because he set the time first.