March 21, 1976 - Atlanta 500

As NASCAR's 1976 season hit March, a couple of storylines had begun to develop.

• The partnership of the Wood Brothers team and driver David Pearson was strong as a brahma bull with wins in the season-opener at Riverside in January and the Daytona 500 in February.
• Legendary mechanic and crew chief Harry Hyde had his #71 Dodge Charger running well with Dave Marcis as they picked up a win at Richmond, the pole at Rockingham, and top 10 finishes at Bristol and Riverside.
• Cale Yarborough and Junior Johnson were ROLLING with top 5 finishes in four of the first five races of the season - including a win at Bristol. The lone blemish was a dead-last finish at Daytona after an engine failure on lap 2.
• Richard Petty's season was quite eccentric - especially compared to his dominating 13-win season in 1975. He had notched a win at Rockingham along with the oh-so-close P2 finish at Daytona and another second behind Marcis at Richmond. But he also had poor finishes at Riverside and Bristol.

The circuit hit Atlanta for the sixth race of the season, and several of those drivers occupied the top five starting spots.

Source: Motor Racing Programme Covers

Marcis claimed his second pole of the year, and Pearson put his Purolator Mercury on the front row alongside him. Petty and Cale occupied the second row, and Benny Parsons rounded out the top five.

Parsons signed on for an exhausting four-days of racing. In addition to his responsibilities for practice, qualifying, and racing in Atlanta, he shuttled back and forth between Georgia and Florida to join David Hobbs as a teammate in the 12 Hours of Sebring IMSA race.

Source: Louis Galanos

Source: Pensacola News Journal

Despite a dismal 27th place finish at Bristol, the King was content with his third place starting spot for Sunday at Atlanta. The 43 team also agreed to let F1 champion and ABC-TV race analyst Jackie Stewart take the STP Dodge Charger for a spin to record some footage for a feature during the Wide World of Sports condensed broadcast of the race.

Source: Atlanta Constitution

The race was super competitive as a number of drivers led throughout it. No one other than Yarborough and Buddy Baker in Bud Moore's Ford led a double-digit number of laps for the first two-thirds of the event. 

Despite the numerous leaders during that stretch, a few folks had a tough time during it. Pole-winner Marcis exited around lap 100 with a failed engine. Bobby Allison's engine also failed in his Roger Penske-owned Mercury near the 200-lap mark followed soon by Petty's Dodge and Baker's Ford with similar woes.

As the race entered the final third, a battle emerged between Pearson and Parsons. With 30 or so laps to go, however, Pearson found his mojo and maintained a gap on Parson's #72 Monte Carlo. The checkered flag flew over Pearson for career win #90, and Parsons was the only other car to finish on the lead lap. Yarborough finished third followed by Lennie Pond and Darrell Waltrip.

Parsons fared better in Atlanta than he did in Sebring. Hobbs got the team's BMW to the lead before making a stop for a driver change. Shortly after Parsons took over, however, he took an offroad excursion through some weeds. The cooling system was damaged, and the team lasted only six hours in the event.

Audio of Universal Racing Network's radio broadcast of the race is available on Appalachian State's library website. 

Source: Atlanta Constitution

TMC