November 4, 1979: The Dixie 500

The next to last race of the 1979 season was the Dixie 500 at Atlanta International Raceway.

THE story line of the race was the points battle between the 6x GN/Cup champion, Richard Petty, and the overly confident Darrell Waltrip with the #88 DiGard Gatorade team. The King had done the improbable. He came off a winless 1-1/2 season stretch from July 1977 through February 1979. He changed from Dodges to General Motors cars in late 1978 with the team having to find new ways to build cars. Petty came into 1979 having barely recovered from ulcer surgery in the offseason. And he was pretty banged up during the season to the point that Jimmy Insolo had to take the wheel for much of the summer race at Riverside. Yet here he was, the veteran just going about his business. He closed a large point deficit down to almost nothing as the circuit headed for Atlanta.

Source: Motor Racing Programme Covers

The other storyline of the day had nothing to do with racing. Radical Iranian Islamic students seized the US Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. Sadly, 52 the hostages were held over a year - 444 days - until the swearing-in of Ronald Reagan was completed.

Qualifying got underway on Thursday, November 1. All eyes were on the #11 Junior Johnson team driven by Cale Yarborough. With only 2 races to go, he still hadn't won a pole in 1979 to earn his way into the 1980 Busch Clash. With Cale having Busch as a sponsor, the pressure to win a pole intensified.

Another story line being watched was the rookie battle between Dale Earnhardt and Joe Millikan. The 1979 rookie class stands perhaps as the best of all time as it also included Terry Labonte and later Harry Gant. I've said since 1979 that I couldn't be an Earnhardt fan because I pulled for Millikan, the former Petty Enterprises employee and driver. And for pete's sake, Joe finished 6th in the 79 Cup standings as a rookie - SIXTH!

As it turns out, however, that was a misguided and myopic decision. By early 1982, Millikan was all but done in Cup. And Earnhardt, well ... he went on to have a so-so career I guess you could say. Source: Spartanburg Herald

As car after car hit the track though, Cale could only muster a front row start alongside pole winner Buddy Baker. The Gentle Giant couldn't rest completely after the first day of qualifying though. With 5 drivers yet to go, rains moved in and postponed things. Today, NASCAR will declare the whole session void if the full field can't qualify. Then, NASCAR wrapped the first round on another day. Lake Speed pulled a facepalm moment during his attempted qualifying run. He tried to replicate David Pearson's qualifying do-over for the 1974 Dixie 500 - but without success. Source: Spartanburg Herald

The rains were persistent on Friday and Baker had to wait yet another day to see if he indeed would win the pole. When activity resumed on Saturday, the only real threat to Baker was the Wood Brothers Mercury of Neil Bonnett. But when he could only muster 4th fastest, the pole was finally awarded to Baker. Source: Spartanburg Herald

As the green dropped, Baker led the first 3 laps. From there, Cale set the pace for the next 43 laps. After qualifying fastest and then having to wait 2 days to officially win the pole, Baker's 28 team may have been a bit nervous about the race itself. If so, the feelings were justified. He lasted only 88 laps and finished 39th in the 41-car field.

After Petty took a slim point lead from Waltrip with his win at Rockingham 2 weeks earlier, the King nearly saw his championship hopes go up in a cloud of Goodyear tire smoke with a spin about 2/3 of the way into the race. Fortunately, he didn't get collected by anyone else, made it to the pits, got serviced, and soldiered on.

In a coincidental twist, Kyle Petty made his first Atlanta start. He too spun his STP Dodge Magnum about 10 laps or so before Richard. His spin was due to a blown engine, however, and Kyle finished 32nd. (John Rezek who Kyle nipped in February to win the ARCA 200 made his 3rd of 4 career Cup starts. He finished 36th - 4 spots below Kyle - in a car 'sponsored' by RPM Enterprises.)

The Daytona Beach Morning Journal had a bit of fun with their sports headline about the spinning Pettys.

Richard recovered nicely to salvage a 6th place finish - a testament to the Petty Enterprises team's ability to make chicken salad out of chicken shi..shkabobs. However, the 43 was unable to lead a lap to pick up 5 bonus points. Waltrip led 10 laps and finished one spot ahead of the 43 in 5th. He would take a 2 point lead to the season finale at Ontario - without the benefit of a trumped up Chase for the Championship as we have today.

Yarborough was the dominant car for the first half of the race and continued to lead through the 3/4 mark. Overall he led 136 of the 328 laps. But as the laps wound down, two cars decided to settle the race between themselves and leave Cale out of it.

Bonnett and Earnhardt battled in the final dozen laps or so. The 21 Purolator Mercury took the lead from Earnhardt's #2 Osterland Chevy with 4 to go. Dale made a surge and tried to get Bonnett for the win, but he came up a half car-length short.

No one could have foreseen how the tight finish between the soft spoken, former pipefitter from Alabama and the rowdy rookie from a Carolina milltown would play out over the next 2 decades. They'd become the best of friends. They were teammates for one event at Talladega. And sadly they perished on the same track in accidents just a few hundred feet from one another.

Race report from Spartanburg Herald

The victory was the first at Atlanta for the Wood Brothers since 1976 when David Pearson had one of his marvelous seasons with the team. Source: Spartanburg Herald

I remember that race quite well and the conversation we had with The King after it was over. Even then I could not stand D.W. and while I won't assume to speak for Richard, I don't think he had much use for him either. Our little group was pretty well assured that Richard was going to send that dude back to Tennessee with a bottle of GatorAide where the sun doesn't shine. He did it too, in spite of all the attempts to manipulate the outcome by D. W.

Oh, Chase, I absolutely love how you pointed out that the points racing was great, most years, before the infernal Chase ever started. Judging from the stands in Texas Sunday, fans don't seem to care too much for the Chase either. In fact, I only saw the last 60 laps because I had much more important things to do.

I watched about 10 laps Sunday.

And I may see very little of this Sunday's race from Phoenix. Have a really important something to do this Sunday.

This was the outcome of Lake's qualifying effort. If I remember right, this was his first attempt in a stock car. I know just three months earlier I was his one-man crew at a Bridgestone Pro Kart race in Quincy, IL. I always thought it was odd that the reigning World Champion (at the time) was running a big $$ kart race with no help. Although when he won the World Champs he had no crew, just one mechanic.

He tried again at Ontario and missed the field by just hundredths then ran the West race at Phoenix. His next start was the 1980 ARCA 200 at Daytona where he qualified 5th and finished 2nd.

And here is the recap of that 1980 ARCA 200 race I posted back in February. The race involved one of the most bizarre, jacked-up decisions made in racing for a restart to finish the race.

http://racersreunion.com/community/forum/stock-car-racing-history/21244/1980-arca-200-at-daytona

bump

I now know the "rest of the story" on Lake's qualifying effort. The last time we talked, this topic came up.

With this being his first time in a stock car he was eager to soak up any knowledge he could. He was standing on top of a hauler in the garage watching the first cars qualify. He was particularly interested in where the fast guys were lifting off the throttle on the entry into turn one.

As he stood and watched, he was shocked at how much deeper they were going before letting off than he had been in practice. He thought about it and decided if they could go in that far, he'd have to do the same if he wanted to make the race. (That wouldn't be a problem today!) So he took a deep breath and rolled off the line. Green flag, into turn one, driving way deeper into the corner than he had ever gone in practice, and you've seen the results above.

After the crash he got to thinking about what had happened, and it eventually dawned on him. He hadn't taken into account how far away the garage and hauler were from turn one and that by the time the sound had traveled that distance, the other drivers really weren't letting off the gas any earlier than he was going into the corner. Because the sound wasn't in synch with what he was seeing it just appeared that way.

Lesson learned. The hard way.