April 5, 1981: The King wins, Kyle spins, Martin begins

Richard Petty wins for the umpteenth time at North WIlkesboro in the Northwestern Bank 400.

Kyle was in his first full season as a Cup driver. Though he never won at Wilkesboro, he had many competitive runs and finishes plus won the pole there in 1990. But this day wasn't one of his good ones. He looped his STP Buick 3x before his day was mercifully ended.

Some Arkansas hot-shoe from the ASA ranks made his Winston Cup debut. He went on to have a pretty decent Cup career - though it took him almost the rest of the decade before he landed a solid, winning ride.

http://bench-racing.blogspot.com/2012/04/april-5-this-day-in-petty-history.html

Special thanks to RR's Ed Sanservino and Jerry Bushmire for photo and article assistance.

TMC

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Schaefer: It's not just for racing anymore.
updated by @tmc-chase: 04/05/18 10:44:11AM

I remember that April 1981 North Wilkesboro weekend oh so well.

It was my first visit to North Wilkesboro as Manager of Wrangler NASCAR Special Events.

Independent Dave Marcis started on the pole in his #71 Chevy and Dale Earnhardt, with new Osterlund crew chief Dale Inman(who began at Atlanta) started on the outside of the front row in his #2 Wrangler Pontiac.

There was a very hard rain shower on Friday that led to to two things I remember vividly.

#1) I had my first confrontation with Earnhardt. We were hunkered down in the Wrangler van in the infield in the rain when a Winston-Salem television crew came up and asked Earnhardt for an interview. He told them he didn't have time to mess with them. I then had the pleasure of explaining to Dale that the new $100,000 Personal Services contract he had just signed included being gracious to the media and doing interviews. With the additional prompting of Joe Whitlock, Dale did the interview.

#2) Instead of Wrangler western boots, I decided to debut my new blue and yellow athletic shoes at Wilkesboro. After trudging in the rain and the North Wilkesboro infield mud, my feet were a nauseous shade of green for a while.

I love all those victory lane pix of Margaret Claud as "Miss Winston". She was the best ever in my opinion. We later talked Maggie into being our "Miss Wrangler" on her off weekends to do Wrangler SuperCross and Tractor Pull events. She was the consummate professional in every way.

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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"