April 18, 1981 - Another Sterling Season Begins

Nashville's fairgounds speedway - renamed Nashville International Raceway in the late 1970s - opened its 1981 season with a program highlighted by the CRC Chemicals 200 Grand American division race.

Courtesy of Russ Thompson

Future back-to-back Daytona 500 winner, Sterling Marlin, was featured on the track's program cover. Marlin returned to Nashville in 1981 as the defending Grand American champion from 1980. In the division's first season at the fairgrounds, Marlin won 12 of the season's 20 races.

1980 Nashville division champions James Forbes, Marlin, and Charles Casteel
Source: The Tennessean

Marlin also began the new season with a new sponsor: Coors beer. Though Coors Light later adorned the sides of his #14 Camaro - as well as his silver #40 Cup car, he began with sho-nuff Coors in April 1981.

Source: Russ Thompson

Seventeen cars took the green - an unusually low car count by Nashville standards. Former track champion and Marlin rival, Mike Alexander, had been expected to race in a car owned by Phillip Grissom from Alabama. Alexander had sold his Grand American car as he planned to focus on developing his Cup career. The arrangement did not materialize, and Grissom ended up racing his own car (or leaving a second one intended for Alexander on the trailer.)

Track promoter Gary Baker and Tennessean writer Larry Woody suggested some expected out-of-town heavy hitters opted instead to race at Greenville-Pickens Speedway in South Carolina rather than tow to Music City. Butch Lindley, David Pearson, and Bobby Allison raced in Greenville, but that race had few other stars in it. Other races may have been held in the south that night, or perhaps Nashville's purse or recruiting of drivers just weren't up to snuff. 

Grissom won the pole, and Marlin started to his outside. As the race began, Marlin got the jump into turn one and quickly extended his dominance from 1980. By around lap 60, he'd just about lapped the full field. But then...

Marlin cut a tire, limped to pit road, and waited anxiously as his part-time, race-day crew mounted a replacement. He returned to action nearly two laps down. Once back on track, however, he realized he had an issue with the new tire. Forced to make a second stop, Marlin fell even further behind.

Sterling made up one of his laps during a caution around the halfway mark, and then caught a break when Grissom had a pit issue of his own. Grissom gave back a lap as his crew thrashed on pit road. With Marlin back on the lead lap, it was time for him to regain his groove. 

The Coors Camaro once again found its way back to the lead. For the remainder of the second half the race, Marlin returned to what he'd done in the first 50 or so laps. As the checkered flag fell, he'd lapped everyone but Grissom - and was close to lapping him as well.  

Sterling's win began a season that topped his 1980 championship-winning one. He captured his second consecutive track title and won 13 of 17 races.

Source: The Tennessean

Though Alexander didn't race at Nashville, he enjoyed some success a week later in Martinsville's Virginia 500 Cup race. He set a track record and was the fastest second-round qualifier in his first trip to the paper clip. Ricky Rudd set the previous mark just the day before during the opening round of qualifying. Alexander backed up his quick time by finishing 10th in the race in only his seventh career Cup start. Alexander's crew chief on his #37 Buick: famed crew chief and FOX Sports analyst Larry McReynolds.

CRC Chemicals 200 Results:

1. Sterling Marlin
2. Phillip Grissom
3. Jerry Sisco
4. Dean Bentley
5. Richard Orton
6. Al Henderson
7. Mark Taylor
8. Steve Grissom
9. Junior Williams
10. Marvin Joyner
11. Carl Langford
12. Bobby Criswell
13. Mike Montgomery
14. Tony Cunningham
15. Mike Bassett
16. Ron Tucker
17. Jimmie Lewis

TMC