The 1971 USAC Championship Car season consisted of 12 races, beginning in

Rafaela Rafaela () is a city in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina, about 96 km from the provincial capital. It is the head town of the Castellanos Department. It has a population of 99,150 per the . The city was established in 1881 by Guillermo ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

on February 28 and concluding in Avondale,

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on October 23. The USAC National Champion was

Joe Leonard Joe Leonard (August 4, 1932 in San Diego, California – April 27, 2017 in San Jose, California) was an American professional motorcycle racer and racecar driver. Biography Motorcycle career Leonard won the first A.M.A. Grand National Champion ...

and the

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winner was

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. For 1971 it was decided that there should be three separate points championships, for paved ovals, dirt ovals, and

road courses Road racing is a form of motorsport racing held on a paved road surface. The races can be held either on a closed circuit or on a street circuit utilizing temporarily closed public roads. Originally, road races were held almost entirely on ...

. The existing Championship Car championship was then restricted to only paved ovals, and two new championships were created. The National Dirt Car Championship (which would become the modern Silver Crown Series in 1981) was run over four races, and won by

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. The Road Racing championship was originally to be run over between 8 and 10 races, however a lack of interest lead to just two races being held on the same day, on the 7th of August at Seattle International Raceway. Continental Championship cars were allowed, and made up the majority of the grid, with just 5 USAC specification cars entered. Jim Dittemore won the series in a

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specification Lola T192-

Chevrolet Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ous ...

. The Road Racing championship did not continue in 1972.

Schedule and results

All races running on Oval/Speedway. On February 18, the non-championship races at Rafaela were transformed into a points-paying double round, due to a request from race organizers. On June 9, the Langhorne round was cancelled after the drivers refused to race at the outdated venue, and on June 30, USAC cancelled the race at the new Mountaineer Speedway, which was never built to completion. The 1971 season was the first time the 500 mile triple crown was on the schedule with the addition of Ontario Motor Speedway's California 500 the previous year & the Pocono 500 added in this season.

Final points standings

Note 1: Donnie Allison, Carlos Pairetti, Denny Hulme, David Hobbs and Jim Hurtubise are not eligible for points.
Note 2: John Mahler qualified 21st at Indianapolis. His car was driven in the race by Dick Simon who started 33rd as a result of the driver change.

References

* * * * * http://media.indycar.com/pdf/2011/IICS_2011_Historical_Record_Book_INT6.pdf (p. 230-231)

Schedule and results

Final points standings

References

See also