March 9, 1969 - Rockingham's Carolina 500

The 1969 NASCAR Grand National season began in  November 1968 followed by Riverside's road course race in January and Daytona's Speedweeks in February, The circuit then began its grind two weeks later with the Carolina 500 at North Carolina Motor Speedway.

   

The Silver Fox - still dark-headed at the time - put his Holman Moody Ford on the pole in Wednesday's qualifying session. Perhaps as motivation for a bit of extra speed, he taped to his dash a picture of his victory lane smooches from his Daytona qualifying twin win.

 

Second round qualifying was rained out on Thursday - stretching an already long-week in Rockingham even longer. Race day was a bit overcast, but the cars were pushed to the grid and the drivers belted in.

Pearson and Isaac led the field to the green. Donnie Allison and Charlie Glotzbach in in Cotton Owens' Dodge tried to stay with the front row at the jump.

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The King started fifth in his Petty Enterprises Ford but didn't have the best outing in Rockingham's final race on the low banks. Following the race, he quipped "Well, look at it this way. We've got the the car handling great on the straightaways. Now all we have to do is get it to handle through the corners. At least we're halfway there."

Courtesy of Dave Fulton

On race day, Pearson's blue and gold #17 Holman Moody Ford was the class of the field. Class of the Field, however, didn't mean a win would come easily. 

With the manual scoring system in place at the time, NASCAR and the teams became confused about who was in front of whom and who was on the lead lap. 

The challenges of the scoring system were revealed early in the race. At one point, NASCAR officials couldn't figure out who the leader was and allowed 22 laps to be run under caution before the pace car finally picked up Cale Yarborough as the leader. That decision set crew chiefs along pit road to gnashing their teeth and rending their garments as no one believed the Wood Brothers' Mercury with Cale aboard was the leader.

As the race neared its end, Mario Rossi, Bobby Allison's car owner and crew chief insisted Allison was in front of Pearson. But NASCAR officials shrugged their collective shoulders, chomped on a toothpick I'm sure, said Nope, and allowed the race to continue.

Petty wasn't the only driver to have an up-close encounter with the guardrail. Pearson went to the high side himself and popped the Armco twice. It was during those misadventures that Rossi believed Allison gained ground on Pearson.

When the checkers finally fell, Pearson was flagged the winner with Allison scored in second - the only other car on the lead lap. Cale came home third, and Paul Goldsmith and Petty rounded out the top five. The win was Pearson's 48th career victory and the first of five wins at Rockingham.

Source: Charlotte Observer

Though Pearson took the trophy to his home a few miles down the road in Spartanburg, Allison and Rossi sulked their way out of the track. A day later, both remained convinced the #22 Coke Machine had won the race. Even Dick Hutcherson (Pearson's crew chief) wasn't entirely convinced the 17 had gone the full distance, but he wasn't about to surrender the official win. 

Source: Spartanburg Herald

As noted earlier, Petty took his rough day in stride. Rather than blame the crew, stew at the media, point fingers at other drivers as is often seen in contemporary Cup racing, the King largely laughed it off as that's racing.

Source: Charlotte Observer

TMC