May 12, 1984: NASCAR's Nashville Nuttiness

TMC Chase
@tmc-chase
10 years ago
4,073 posts

My introduction to stock car racing was at Nashville's Fairgrounds Speedway in 1974. While I won't swear to it, I think the evening's feature was a 200-lap NASCAR late model sportsman race featuring drivers such as Jack Ingram, L.D. Ottinger, Harry Gant, Morgan Shepherd and Butch Lindley. The date, the race, who won, etc. have all been forgotten, but I do remember my eyes being wide open and my heart pumping.

The first time I got to see Cup cars live was during qualifying for the 1976 Nashville 420. My first Cup race to  attend  was naturally at Nashville - the 1978 Music City 420. During the second half of the 1970s, I was a bigger fan of the local favorites such as Steve Spencer, Alton Jones, Sterling Marlin, Mike Alexander, Tony Cunningham, P.B. Crowell III, etc. than I was of the Cup series. After leaving for college, however, I found it harder to keep up with the local guys and really went all-in as a Cup fan.

The original ownership group sold to another in the late 70s, and the track was renamed Nashville International Raceway. California real estate developer and racing outsider Warner Hodgdon bought into the ownership group (as well as stakes in Bristol and North Wilkesboro), and 'International' was dropped from the track's name. Yet then (and now) I always just referred to the track as 'the fairgrounds'.

After being known as the Music City USA 420 through the 1970s, the spring race took a title sponsor coinciding with the ownership change. In 1984, the race was branded as the Coors 420 - though a car with Po' Folks restaurant was featured on the program. Go figure. (One of the local guys was sponsored by Po' Folks ... I think.)

Coors sponsored the race as well as a car in the race - the #9 Harry Melling Ford. The team's driver, Bill Elliott, was still a season away from exploding in the NASCAR consciousness with his dominating 1985 season. A different beer brand, however, sponsored the two cars that became  the  story of the race - Budweiser.

In 1982, Junior Johnson announced two sport-shaking deals. One, he announced Hodgdon was investing in his team. Also, he planned to expand his operation to a two-car team in 1984. Outside investors and multi-car teams in NASCAR were both rarities up to that point. Generally speaking, the second car was way off the primary car.

Darrell Waltrip was already on board with Junior's championship winning #11 team. Neil Bonnett joined him in 1984 in a matching Chevrolet after spending a transition year in 1983 with Rahmoc Racing and 'sponsorship' by Hodgdon. Both cars were sponsored by Budweiser and Kentucky Fried Chicken, and the team was quickly dubbed Double Thunder.

The team should perhaps have been nicknamed Double Trouble. Though the two teams had common ownership, sponsors, and car makes, the 11 and 12 bunch did not function as a team as is the model for contemporary NASCAR racing. Led by crew chiefs Jeff Hammond (for Waltrip) and Doug Richert (for Bonnett), the two cars were perhaps more competitive with one another than with other cars on the track.

Yet - they were quick. On short tracks where Junior's cars historically had run well, they raced even better with DW and Neil behind the wheel.

As the Winston Cup series rolled into Music City for the 10th race of the 1984 season, Waltrip was ready to race with a high level of confidence.

  • He was a two-time late model champion at the track in 1970 and 1973.
  • Waltrip earned his first Cup win at the track in 1975.
  • The 11 team was the defending champion of the race having won the Marty Robbins 420 a year earlier.
  • DW had two wins and eight Top 10s in the first 9 races of the year.

Sure enough, the 11 team laid down the quickest qualifying lap on Friday night to nab the pole. Ricky Rudd qualified alongside Waltrip in his Wrangler Jeans Bud Moore Ford. A couple of  unsponsored  drivers made up the second row: Geoff Bodine in Rick Hendrick's Chevy and Ron Bouchard in Jack Beebe's Buick. Dale Earnhardt rounded out the starting five in a second Wrangler ride, Richard Childress' Chevy.

Bonnett qualified 15th, about mid-pack, but a quick, single-lap wasn't his measurement of greatness for the weekend. Two weeks earlier, he  wheel-hopped the curb at Martinsville . Doing so caused his steering wheel to spin quickly to the right - so quickly that he didn't have a chance to loosen his grip. The spin snapped Bonnett's wrist and dislocated his thumb. He incredibly popped his thumb back into place  while at speed , and finished the race in fifth place. Only after returning home to Alabama was he able to have the bones set and a cast applied. The awkwardness of the cast and persistent pain when racing were challenges he had to face, yet Neil did not miss a start.

When the green flag flew on Saturday May 12, Neil spent the first 20 percent of the race working himself methodically towards the front. He finally went to the point on lap 87 and led sizable chunks of laps throughout the race. When the night was done, he'd led 320 of the 420 laps - with a broken, throbbing right wrist.

With about 10 laps to go, Neil was being hounded by the #5 Chevy of Geoff Bodine. Two weeks earlier at Martinsville, Bodine won the first Cup race for himself and Hendrick Motorsports - the race in which Bonnett had broken his wrist. Bodine got past Bonnett, but Neil fought back in an effort to reclaim the lead. Instead, he spun himself out with seven to go.

Remarkably, Bonnett was able to gather his car and pit without losing too much track position. Bodine ducked in the pits as well knowing he'd have to race Neil hard again. The race resumed with three to go with Waltrip out front (who chose not to pit). Then all sorts of a mess broke out. Cup upstart Rusty Wallace trashed his Gatorade Pontiac coming out of turn two. Bobby Allison, the reigning Cup champion, got collected, caught fire, and drove in reverse down the backstretch through three and four and then down pit road.

Bonnett was humping it on the high side as he tried to catch Waltrip. Then the King inexplicably spun his STP Pontiac and Kyle Petty looped his car into the inner wall to avoid t-boning his father's 43.

Waltrip flashed under the starter's stand taking the white and yellow flags. He checked up some to make it through the debris from the wrecks yet maintained good speed. Bonnett still went full bore, caught DW in turn four, and nipped the 11 at the line. Waltrip, his crew, and the TV announcers initially believed DW was the winner because the caution had flown a lap earlier. Bonnett believed the track was essentially still 'green' because the yellow flew as the last lap started vs. at the end of the next to last lap. In that era, cars raced back to the line when a caution happened vs. the 'frozen field' model used today.

NASCAR's officials then went into Keystone Kops mode. They directed Bonnett to victory lane. Within a minute or so, they had Waltrip drive to victory lane and had Bonnett leave. But again within a few minutes they switched back to Bonnett as the winner. The collective set of officials seemed unable to determine when the yellow flag flew and what was permissible in terms of racing back to the finish line.

As the crowd left the stands and TV left the air, Bonnett was indeed in victory lane as Waltrip's team was left fuming.

Original race report - Gainesville Sun

Interestingly, Warner Hodgon (in slacks and button-down shirt and getting Waltrip's glare) was part of the winning and losing end of it all. He was a partial owner of both Bud teams as well as an investor in the track whose reputation was getting dinged because of NASCAR's ineptness. But the disputed finish would soon be the least of his concerns.

Waltrip wasn't finished. He defiantly protested the finish. Junior Johnson had the unenviable position of protesting the victory by his own car. (Such a protest by a car owner against another of his own cars wasn't unprecedented. Lee Petty  protested his own son's win in 1959 at Lakewood Speedway.)

Three days later, NASCAR sided with Waltrip's protest and declared him the winner and moved Bonnett back to second. - Hendersonville NC  Times-News

I remember the confusing finish, but I don't remember if I saw the race on TV or listened to it on MRN. I'm thinking it was likely the latter. I was away at college, and we didn't have a TV in our dorm room. We had a TV in the rec room, but I know no one would have allowed it to be dominated by a race on a Saturday night. The guys had more important things to watch ... such as music videos on MTV.

The Coors 420 is available as part of MRN's Classic Races Podcast series. The original broadcast can be heard at [ MRN's site ]or streamed through MRN's iTunes channel.

Nashville Speedway put its hooks deep into me 40 years ago, and it's amazing to think 30 years has passed since this particular race was run. Back then, I toted fewer pounds and bigger dreams. I had visions of spending many future years watching Cup racing there. No way it could ever end ... or would it?

Hodgdon's non-racing financial situation took a quick tumble in the mid 80s. His fall was so precipitous that his racing interests were drawn into the abyss. Suddenly, Junior Johnson was faced with losing his two teams and life's work as a car owner. He was able to craft a deal to buy back Hodgdon's equity and get him out of the picture.

The fairgrounds track wasn't as fortunate. The track hosted its annual summer race in July. Bodine won the Pepsi 420, but his win turned out to be the final Cup race in Nashville. With many questions surrounding Hodgdon's finances, the long-term viability of the track, and other legal complications between the track and it's landlord, the city of Nashville, NASCAR chose to withdraw its sanction after the 1984 races.

Racing continues to this day at my home track - and it's truly hard to believe three decades have passed since the final year of Cup racing. But at least The Fairgrounds' Cup days went out with a bang as two teammates had to scrap like foes to settle the score.

Big thanks to Russ Thompson for several of the photos!




--
Schaefer: It's not just for racing anymore.

updated by @tmc-chase: 05/12/17 10:34:45AM
Jay Coker
@jay-coker
10 years ago
177 posts

Credit to Russ for the Motorweek Illustrated recap- I would appreciate people NOT watching the video from the guy that posted the full race on Youtube. His video was posted from my personal collection WITHOUT permission.

Dave Fulton
@dave-fulton
10 years ago
9,137 posts

Jay... back in 1971, Cher released a song titled "Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves." Maybe you could send the guy a copy.




--
"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
Dave Fulton
@dave-fulton
10 years ago
9,137 posts

Richard & Kyle finished 7th & 11th (plug, plug) after Kyle clipped his spinning father at the end.




--
"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
Jay Coker
@jay-coker
10 years ago
177 posts

He doesn't care. He and a friend actually claimed to me at one point they were responsible for a certain race surfacing, which was a lie because I personally knowthe guy that acquired the race directly from the video room at the Charlotte Motor Speedway! Both of them have had accounts deleted there due to copyright issues, and I can only hope that they one day have their IP addresses blocked from YouTube over it.

bill mcpeek
@bill-mcpeek
10 years ago
820 posts

great report....enjoyed it all ....

Dennis Andrews
@dennis-andrews
10 years ago
835 posts

Darrell liked controversy. It gave him a chance to talk in front of a camera.

Jerry Lawless
@jerry-lawless
10 years ago
4 posts

It was the weirdest thing I had seen in my seven years of living. OOh how I miss cup racing at the fair grounds.

And, yes the Po Folks car was a weekly competitor in the late models. Saturday night was race night for our family at the fairgrounds for a long time after cup left. Thanks for jostling loose some memories.

Jerry

Dave Fulton
@dave-fulton
10 years ago
9,137 posts

Jerry, I was introduced to my first Po Folks in Nashville in 1982. I had never before heard of the place, but then I'd also never heard of a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, sponsor of the Saturday night, May 8, 1982 Nashville Cup race I was working.

My Wrangler Racing assistant program manager, Mel Parkhurst and I had driven the Wrangler Racing van from Greensboro, NC to Nashville for the weekend. We slept in late Sunday following the late night activities at the track and needed to grab some lunch before driving back to Greensboro.

It had not dawned on us that Sunday, May 9, 1982 was Mother's Day - in Nashville and everywhere else that sells greeting cards.

Evey restaurant we came to had lines out the door. We hadn't eaten breakfast and were starved.

We finally came across a Po Folks and decided to go in. It, too, was crowded, but we had to eat. Had a pretty good meal. Not long after that one of the Bill Anderson joints opened in Greensboro near Four Seasons Mall. For some reason, however, it was many years before Cracker Barrel made it to our neck of the woods.




--
"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
TMC Chase
@tmc-chase
7 years ago
4,073 posts

Downtime between on-track activities. No motorcoaches or golf cart escapes. As Dale Inman often says these days "It hasn't always been this easy."

Posted by Dave Fulton




--
Schaefer: It's not just for racing anymore.

updated by @tmc-chase: 05/12/17 10:44:25AM