Race reports
Jimmy Insolo won the Stock Car Products 300 "modified sportsman" race. From Gadsden Times
Cup race report from Wilmington's Star-News ...
...and from Gadsden Times
Two weeks before the Cup race, driver Sonny Easley was killed during a practice run for the Stock Car Products 300 support race. From Spartanburg Herald .
From FindAGrave.com
Sonny's memorial page at RacersReunion
http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/group/rememberingsonnyeasley
Dave Friedman returned to Riverside to shoot more photos in the mid 70s after doing so throughout the Motor Trend 500s of the 1960s. The Henry Ford Arte House has over 100 of Friedman's photos from the race on-line here:
http://thehenryford.artehouse.com/perl/collection.pl?collectionID=2840&productTypeID=62
The starting line-up on the pace lap
The similarly painted First National City Travelers Checks cars of Cale and Benny Parsons
The Petty Enterprises pitting the legendary 74 Charger in its final Cup race. (The Petty crew would service the Charger again in 1978 for Joe Millikan in his limited late model sportsman starts for the team.)
Pearson and Cale going toe to toe
Jimmy Insolo
A driver whose name I didn't recognize - Vince Giamformaggio - gets in all sorts of problems off in the dirt in his #39 Chevrolet. Vince raced in 5 Cup events: 3 at Riverside and 2 at Ontario.
Cale enjoying the spoils of victory lane
Cale's win even brought a rare smile to Junior Johnson's face
Race program from Motor Racing Programme Covers
Promotional poster and ticket stub
Based on this June 13, 1977 Redlands Daily Facts article, sounds like the 1977 Riverside Cup race was the beginning of Gary Nelson's Cup career. Though I'm not 100% certain, it's likely he was the crew chief on Baldwin's winning LMS car as he'd been the past few years. But DiGard also hired him to help the 88 crew in the Cup race, and the effort earned him a full-time job with the team.
Couple of photos and a feature on Petty's day from the January 17 edition of the The San Bernardino County Sun. 
Ivan Baldwin won the preliminary Permatex 300 LMS race on Saturday, January 15. Race report from The Bakersfield Californian by long-time west coast writer Owen Kearns, who later became the communications director for NASCAR's truck series. Owen is still around. He is on Twitter at @1oldtrucker.
Race report from Reading Eagle
Bobby Allison's day in the Matador ended early - and spectacularly. I'd like to find a better version of this image.
The Silver Fox in victory lane - from The Reading Eagle
Race program from Motor Sports Programme Covers
Pearson' win over Cale was the lead story for the January 19th issue of National Speed Sport News (thx to Russ Thompson for the cover page)
And Pearson's win was featured in the May 1977 issue of Stock Car Racing - though coverage of the race took a back seat to that year's Speedweeks events. But if someone has the issue, would be good if they could scan and share any good pics or articles from it here.
