April 11, 1976: Darlington's Rebel 500

The eighth race of NASCAR's 1976 Winston Cup Series schedule was the Rebel 500 at Darlington Raceway.

Though the season was seven races old, the story to that point was the Wood Brothers team with David Pearson. The team entered only four of the first seven races, yet Pearson won three of the four at Riverside, the Daytona 500, and Atlanta. Pearson arrived in Darlington having also won three of the past four Rebel 500 races.

Richard Petty, grew a beard in conjunction with the year-long celebration of the United States' bicentennial. After growing and showing in the legendary finish of the '76 Daytona 500 with Pearson and in victory lane two weeks later at Rockingham, The King caved and shaved during the week before Darlington.

To the surprise of ... well, no one actually, Pearson won the pole. He won it for the third consecutive Darlington race and the fourth of the five previous Rebel races. Bobby Allison, the winner of both of Darlington's races in 1975, timed alongside Pearson in Roger Penske's CAM2 Mercury.

Fans were treated to a great race from the jump. Pearson led the first lap but was soon passed by Allison. Pearson battled back a couple of laps later to regain the lead, but his time there was once again short lived. 

Others soon battled past Pearson and Allison to take their own turns at the point. Buddy Baker, Donnie Allison, Lennie Pond, Darrell Waltrip, Dave Marcis, Benny Parsons, Cale Yarborough and Petty all muscled their way to join Pearson and Bobby Allison at the front at some point during the first two-thirds of the race. Throughout the day, fans witnessed 32 lead changes - a stat generally expected at other tracks such as Daytona or Talladega.

The race featured a couple of brutal accidents - though fortunately none of the drivers involved were seriously injured. Shortly past the 80th lap, independent racer James Hylton spun and was clipped by Buddy Baker. As Hylton's car swapped ends, Waltrip had nowhere to go and drilled the nose of Hylton's 48 hard enough to launch his Gatorade Chevy a bit. Both were done for the day. 

Early leader Bobby Allison also nicked Hylton. He was able to continue but was no longer competitive. Baker damaged the nose and hood of his Bud Moore Ford, but the team made some battlefield repairs that allowed the car to remain competitive the rest of the way.

About a hundred laps later, Jerry Sisco lost it coming off turn four. He popped the outside wall along the front straightway, crossed the track near the flag stand, drilled the inside pit wall, and came to a stop as flames began to emerge from the car.

Credit: Gerald Medford

Sisco's car came to rest near the Petty pit stall. Crew chief Dale Inman and crewman (and future crew chief) Barry Dodson instinctively rushed to Sisco's aid. They leapt the pit wall and pulled Sisco to safety before rescue crews arrived.

Credit: Don Hunter / Smyle Media

Sisco, the brother of Cup racer and 1969 Nashville late model sportsman champion Dave Sisco, had only three Cup starts on his resume prior to Darlington. With the hit and near miss, his Cup days ended after his fourth one. 

Though Sisco did not return to NASCAR, his racing days continued. He returned in the early 1980s to race in the Grand American Division at Nashville's Fairgrounds Speedway. Sterling Marlin's streak of consecutive track championships ended at three when Sisco won the title himself in 1983. He was later inducted into Nashville's Hall of Fame in 2012.

Car owner Wayne Day, Nashville PR Director Tom Roberts, and
1983 Grand American track champion Jerry Sisco
Source: Tom Roberts

By the time the race reached it's final 100 laps, the Track Too Tough To Tame had taken its toll on many. Ol' DW was nursing some bruises from his tough hit on James Hylton. Bobby Allison hung in as best he could after also tangling with Hylton. Cale Yarborough's engine failed around lap 170, and Richard Petty's Dodge suffered the same fate about 30 laps later.

Buddy Baker, however, was still up on the wheel. Despite the damage suffered in the Hylton crash, he remained in the hunt. He and Pearson swapped the lead several times in the second half of the race - with Baker leading most of them. 

With about 20 laps, Parsons looped his car to bring out the final caution of the day. At the time of the yellow, Baker had once again gone to the front, led a sizable chunk of laps, and gapped second place running Pearson a bit. 

As the race returned to green, Pearson had a renewed opportunity. With about 10 to go, he eased the Purolator Mercury past Baker's Ford and continued to win yet another time at Darlington. Though Baker wasn't happy with P2, he had to be pleased at leading over 200 of the race's 367 laps - most of them with a damaged car.

Pearson's 91st career win was also his sixth at Darlington and fourth of the past five Rebel races.

 

Embed from Getty Images

Source: Charlotte Observer

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1970 Flameless 300

Since 1958, Nashville's Fairgrounds Speedway closed its seasons annually for twenty years with the running of the Southern 300 during the 1960s and Southern 400 in the 1970s. Beginning in 1966, the track scheduled the Flameless 300 as its April season opener (1967 - 1968 - 1969).

A month following the 1969 Southern 300, construction crews arrived to tear up the original half-mile track and replace it with a high-banked one. Long-time Nashville racing historian, Russ Thompson, blogged in 2011:

After the fire destroyed the original grandstands in September of 1965, the track went into a holding pattern. Management realized the track needed to be updated but wanted to wait until a decision was made to reconstruct a permanent grandstand. The “temporary” stands served the track for four seasons.

During 1969 the Fair Board approved construction of a new state-of-the-art grandstand. It would be covered like the original stands, but unique in that there would be no posts supporting the roof. A revolutionary design was implemented where a series of cables would support the roof from above. With the construction of the stands, the decision was made to build a new track as well. The track would have the steepest banks in the nation at 36 degrees. And the distance would be slightly longer than the half-mile at five-eighths of a mile.

The new track was supposed to be ready for racing by May 30, 1970 - about six weeks later than the traditional season opening. Instead, multiple delays pushed the completion date until well into the summer.

The track was finally ready - barely - by mid-July. Rather than launch the abbreviated season with the late model sportsman 300-lapper, NASCAR's Grand National teams arrived to christen the new track. The Nashville 420 was slotted for July 25th - about the same of the year as it had been throughout the 1960s. Bobby Isaac won the race, but the larger story was about tires. Speeds were significantly faster on the new, smooth, high-banked track, and the tires simply couldn't cope with them.

A newer tire compound was brought in for the 1970 edition of the Flameless 300 two weeks later on August 8th, the second event of the shortened season. It was expected to be a safer, more predictable tire for the late model racers.

Source: The Tennessean

The defending and two-time winner of the Flameless 300, Bob Burcham, did not return for the 1970 race. He had been expected to race and perhaps would have done so if the race was held on one of the previously expected dates.

Freddy Fryar, also a two-time Flameless 300 winner, returned for the 1970 race after missing it in 1969. Fryar's finish in his first outing on the new track, however, hardly resembled the solid finishes he'd experienced on the old half-mile.

Source: The Tennessean

A driver making his Nashville debut was  Jerry Sisco, brother of 1969 track champion and future Winston Cup driver, Dave Sisco.

Source: The Nashville Banner

Jerry Sisco endured a bit of irony in two different rookie seasons.

• He began his Nashville racing days in the 1970 Flameless 300. 
• Six years later as a Cup rookie in Darlington's Rebel 500, he pounded the wall and went up in flames. He was pulled to safety by Dale Inman and Barry Dodson from Petty Enterprises' crew. The race was Jerry's fourth (and perhaps understandably) final career Cup start.

Jimmy Griggs, a long-time Nashville racer, winner and fan favorite, was badly injured in the 1969 season-ending Southern 300. About two-thirds of the race through the race, Griggs and Ron Blasingim were involved in a first-turn, two-car savage wreck with Griggs getting the worst end of it. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition and needed months to recover.

Source: Nashville Fairgrounds Racing History Facebook Group

The accident ended Griggs' racing career. But he returned just shy of a year later to be the Grand Marshal for the 1970 Flameless 300.

Source: The Tennessean

Chattanooga, TN drivers Fryar and Burcham had ruled the night in the four previous Flameless 300 races. The duo split the four races, and Burcham won two poles to boot. Another Chattanooga driver - Friday Hassler - added to the Scenic City narrative by winning the pole position for the 1970 race. 

A two-time winner of Nashville's Southern 300 in 1962-1963, Hassler had been a frequent NASCAR GN racer since 1967, and he was the only driver in the Flameless field to also race in Nashville's GN event a month earlier.

James Ham, a local racer since 1968, seemingly loved the high banks. He qualified an unexpected second. With the new configuration, Nashville's track record was destroyed by the top qualifiers by about 30 MPH.

An occasional racer at the Fairgrounds from Owensboro, Kentucky - Darrell Waltrip - qualified third, and Bill Morton lined up fourth. Waltrip committed to run the full season, such that it was, in Nashville for the first time in 1970 in an orange-and-white #48 Chevelle owned by long-time Nashville racer P.B. Crowell.

Though the tire issues experienced in the Grand National race seemed to have been resolved, new challenges faced the late models. The speeds of the new high-banked demon stressed the cars and drivers. 

Hassler led eight of the first nine laps before breaking a rocker arm in his engine. Ham interrupted Hassler's lead but for only one lap. After only six laps, he broke a wheel spindle and within moments was joined on the sidelines by Hassler. The top two qualifiers suddenly found themselves as the bottom two finishers.

With Hassler and Ham gone, Charlie Binkley in #125 took over and led the first third of the race. Fryar in #41 and Waltrip followed close behind as all three took the high line around the speedway - not even close to the line that drivers take on today's track configuration.

Continuing the theme of the night, however, Binkley's early domination ended with a parts failure. His distributor gave up the ghost, and he parked it as had fourteen other cars before him - all before the halfway mark of the race!

Fryar broke a crankshaft a couple of laps after Binkley's exit, and he would not become a three-time Flameless 300 winner. Fryar's night was not done just yet though. Nearing lap 200, former NASCAR GN driver and middle Tennessee transplant, Bunkie Blackburn hit pit road. He almost passed out from fumes in the car and needed oxygen when pulled from his car. Fryar immediately belted into Blackburn's #42 in relief.

Before Blackburn could be transported to a local hospital, however, Fryar's night was finally done. Not long after returning to the track, Fryar wrecked Blackburn's car while trying to pass a lapped car.

A full third of the race remained, but few cars remained to challenge for the win. With many of the top starters already parked, Waltrip put 'er on cruise control and piled up lap after lap out front. When the checkered flag fell, the late model rookie was five laps ahead of second place finisher L.D. Ottinger and 25 laps ahead of third place finisher, Ben Pierce. Only eight of 33 cars were still around to see the end of the Flameless.

The victory was Waltrip's first late model win at Nashville. He followed it with 50+ more of them. Waltrip's Nashville resume is also padded with:

• two late model sportsman track titles
• eight Winston Cup victories - including four in a row
• a Busch Series win
• a USAC stock car division win, and 
• an All American 400 win.

Waltrip also won eleven Cup races at Bristol. He has noted he developed his feel for Bristol by racing on Nashville's high banks in the early 1970s.

Source: The Tennessean

Finishing Order:

1. Darrell Waltrip
2. L. D. Ottinger
3. Ben Pierce
4. Ronnie Blasingim
5. Jerry Sisco
6. Bob Brown
7. James Veach
8. Harold Carden
9. Jim Woodall
10. Junior Caldwell
11. Gene Payne
12. Bunky Blackburn
13. Dorman Adams
14. Bill Morton
15. Jimmy Kyle
16. David Sisco
17. Freddy Fryar
18. Phil Woodall
19. Charley Binkley
20. Flookie Buford
21. Charlie Higdon
22. Bobby Hargrove
23. Chester Albright
24. Bobby Walker
25. Bob Hunley
26. Jim McDowell
27. Donnie Roberts
28. Jimmy Williams
29. Art Ellis
30. David Lowe
31. B. K. Luna
32. Friday Hassler
33. James Ham

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