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FHnnIOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY is notVreally Richard Petty's kind of track. Cer-tainly, it has many things in common with everyother superspeedway on the circuit andRichard Petty has had more experience thanmost in running races on superspeedways.CMS has always had a certain place in thePetty consciousness because, at least until1975, a very good year for Petty from start tofinish in the competition department, victory atthe Harrisburg, Nofth Carolina track had man-aged to keep a phantom lap in front of him. In1975, however, Richard Petty ended quite a fewjinx-type obstacles in his career, although it waseveryone else who called things like never hav-ing won at CMS a jinx. "There is no such thingas a jinx in racing," Petty had contended."There's just bad luck. we were unlucky atCharlotte. lt could just as easily be any track onthe circuit. lt just happens to be Charlotte -often." Jinx or bad luck, Petty had finished offthat obstacle in his career in 1975 by winningboth races at the track, the Memorial Day World600 and the fall National 500.Between 1975 and 1977,however, there hadbeen some changes made at Charlotte MotorSpeedway. The track had come under the in-fluence of O. Bruton Smith again and RichardHoward was no longer involved. Richard How-ard had brought new life to the troubled track byvarious innovations, such as awarding an inor-dinately large amount of money to the driverwinning the pole for the World 600. The largeamount of money, Howard felt, would drawfansto the track on Thursday and Friday, because itwould put a certain element of excitement intothe run-for-the-pole that was not normallythere. The ploy worked. There were suddenlycrowds at CMS during the week to watch therun for the pole and the money, now beingdonated by the Sun-Drop soft drink company,was buying important newspaper and radioand TV attention which helped assure evenbigger crowds forthe actual race. lt didn't muchmatter that Glen Wo.od, knowing David Pear-son's penchant for doing important racing whenmoney is involved in favorable quantities, hadTommy Turner build a special qualifying enginefor the Purolator Mercury so that the prizemoney was becoming an annual Woodbrothers/Pearson benefit party. The moneymeant prestige for the qualifying, and CMSlikes all the prestige it can get.With O. Bruton Smith at the helm of the oper-ation, Richard Howard's plans became hugehybrid things that even Richard Howard wouldnot recognize, because Bruton Smith likes tospend money more than the relativelyconservative Howard. Bruton Smith okayed abigger prize money pot, because he wants theworld 600 to rival and eventually surpass theSEPTEMBER 1977

A STRANGE PLACE TO CELEBRATE- During his career, Richard Petty has seldom visited theCharlotte Motor Speedway victory lane; when he does, however, he finds himself welcomed warmlyMike Slade Photo.

,MffiDaytona 500 as fhe stock car event on thecalendar. And, in order to provide some actionup front instead of allowing the driver to layback through the mid-point of the race, a pro-gram of offering $5000 bonus dollars for thedriver who would lead the most laps in each50-lap segment was formulated. No more ofthis saving-the-car-&-driver-until{he-end non-sense. No more strategy. O. Bruton Smithwanted his races the fastest, most competitiveraces on the circuit, and O. Bruton Smith be-lieves in the admonition that "money talks, no-body walks." With $5000 up for grabs in each50-lap segment, there was every indication thatthe drivers would sprint for the lead. Addition-ally, should the same charger lead the wholerace, or at least a good portion of it, it waspossible for him to go home with more moneythan he could have won at the Daytona 500-adefinite plus for the CMS publicity mill.The plans, however, put O. Bruton Smith'splans on a collision course with the foremostcritic of such practices to artificially (as in 'withmoney') hype the field.Richard Petty has always been an exponentof putting any extra money into the race purseso that everyone who qualifies has an opportu-nity to go for it. He has been steadfastly againstlap-leader bonus money, money for qualifica-tion prowess, prizes of boats and trips andwhatever for leading certain laps -

in short,anything that did not go into the simple pay-

ment for simple racing. Money for racing iswhat the game is all about, according to Petty;money should not be awarded for standing onyour head. In a sense, it is a philosophy thatprotects Petty Enterprises by protectingeveryone else who races. The more moneyavailable, the more money filters down to themiddle and back of the pack so that the little guycan continue to race the entire circuit. RichardPetty is the first to realize that although thehighlight of the show is the competition up front,without the rest of the field it would be a versionof the International Race of Champions, andthat can very easily be overdone.Richard Petty's protests, however, havegone unheeded, as one track after another hascome up with little twists and gadgets to hypeinterest in a race that is already interesting.Perhaps tiring of fighting a losing battle, Pettydecided to take another tact and, learning frombrother Maurice and cousin Dale Inman thathe engine Maurice had built for the race wasturning out almost as much horsepower on thedynomometer as the qualification engine, Pettydecided to try to prove in the laboratory of therace track what he has argued theoretically canhappen to a race that is hyped to death with"incentive" money being sprinkled everywhereat once."We decided that if the motor and the rest othe car felt good, we were goin' for it," he said

after qualifying the STP Dodge at 161.112 mph37

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which put him outside arch-rival David pearsonon the front row of the starting field. Cale Yar-borough and DarrellWaltrip had qualified in thesecond row. Pearson had once again taken theSun-Drop trophy for qualifying fastest, a mere.323 mph over Petty's speed. (As though thealready-posted hype money weren't enough,CMS saw a chance for more of the same byposting a special $1000 award for the driverwho led the pack at the end of the first lap,hoping for some excitement between Pearsonand Petty at the onset of racing.)As the weekend progressed, with BruceJacobiand Rich Newsom coming together in afrightening crash coming out of the fourth turnin a morning practice session which left both ofthem bruised and hurting but able to walk awayfrom the horrendous impact, Petty contendedthat maybe it wasn't so much that he was tryingto prove anything to the promoters. Maybe heand his crew were working extra hard to banksome extra bucks in the Petty Enterprises ac-count if those bucks were being offered forsomething so silly as leading segments of therace. "That's not how I usually race," Petty said."l usually like to lay back a little, especially in along race like this, and see what's happenin'before I do anything. But we're ready here. Thatengine's runnin'sweet and the crew's workedhard and the car feels good. And paying thebills is the name of this game anyway, right?"He smiled around his long, thin, ClintEastwood-like cigar. "lf they put the moneythere we're gonna git it if we kin. lf it provesanything else-" He shrugged his shoulders."Well," Lennie Pond, who was at Charlottewith a completely unsponsored car that hadbeen assisted to the track by some tow andappearance money from the CMS manage-ment, "this isn't usually Richard Petty's track,but if he's runnin' good, any track's his track.And he's runnin'good. Real good."When race day came, though, with actualsunshine, which hadn't been seen in the Char-lotte area for many a day, and with a full housethat CMS officials claimed was 115,000 people,

lhe heat uas ovcr?poucrlng and In a strangc paradorr BennyParsons found hlmsclf asklng for rellef becauJe tre uas too GooI.

but which was probably more realistically95,000, and when the field lined up on pit road,it looked very much as though any one of adozen cars was capable of winning the world'slongest-and sometimes most boring-stockcar race. Pearson and Buddy Baker had won atCharlotte Motor Speedway and they were inthe field; so had the Allison brothers; and sohad defending NASCAR Grand Nationalchampion Cale Yarborough, although it hadbeen back in 1973 at the fall race with thecontroversial finish which Bobby Allison hadprotested. Besides Pearson and Petty, Yar-borough and Waltrip, Donnie Allison, rookieSam Sommers, Skip Manning, USACeT RonHutcherson, BobbyAllison, G. C. Spencet CooCoo Marlin, Neil Bonnett and Lennie Pond hadalso qualified in the top ten. "l'm not much of aveteran of these things," Hutcherson said be-fore the race, "but in a race this long, I guessthat just about anything can happen - andanybody can win on a given Sunday, I'd sup-pose."

The only winner on Sunday was RichardPetty.The entire story was a two-sided one: 1.)Richard Petty was running exceptionally well,and 2.) no one was able to threaten him.It has long been an axiom in Grand Nationalracing that when certain people are runningright, everyone else might just as well stay athome. Richard Petty was running right. DavidPearson was running well, but after persistentplugging away during the midpoint of the race,and losing a fraction of a second per lap, itbecame very clear that the last set of pitstopswould tell the story. They did. Richard Pettypitted under the green. Nine seconds behindhim David Pearson pitted. Richard Petty got outfirst and was never threatened again - somuch so, in fact, that David Pearson took onemore pitstop toward the end just to make surethat there was enough gasoline to keep him insecond place, a position that has been becom-ing increasingly common to the Purolator Mer-

humid, but certainly not overpowering. Pettykept cool by using the "cool head" driving hel-met which pumps ice water through a nettinginside the helmet to keep the brain cool andtherefore functioning perfecfly. Benny parsons,knowing from experience what the grind atCharlotte is like, spent the several thbusanddollars for the "cool head" apparatus-unfor-tunately, the temperature was turned down toolow, and the constant chill on his head wasworse than having no protection against theheat at all, especially since the headaches thatthe "cool head" caused were finding a perfectnest in which to hatch. Parsons had been keep-ing a hectic pace for a week before the race,and Parsons'problems are something of a tes-timonial against a racer allowing himself to getinvolved in too much non-racing activity. Aweek before the race Parsons was submittingto a "Benny Parsons Day" in Ellerbe, hisadopted hometown. Sunday he was practicingat CMS. From there he found himself inCharleston, W. Va., then on to Montreal. Heattended press breakfast affairs, TV appear-ances, dinners, some short track racing. Prac-tice in his Chevrolet during the latter part of theweek must have seemed like a vacation to him.When he actually got back to racing, therewasn't enough of him left, so he had his crewcall upon Bobby Allison, whose First NationalCity Travelers Checks Matador had gone outafter 63 laps with a broken valve. "lt was run-ning real good while it was running," Allisonsaid."That Allison did a really great job of relievingme when I had to get out," Benny Parsons saidfollowing the race. "He's a really great driver.We couldn't have been happier with the kind ofjob he was doing for us.Allison brought the red, white and blueChevy home one lap in front of Lennie Pond,who had spent the entire afternoon running upfront among the leaders, despite the fact thathe was running totally as an independent. "Weran as hard for as long as we could," Pond said

afterwards. "We sort of had somethin'to prove,and I think we did prove somethin'. When wecome to a track we come to race, sponsor orno."Pond had been passed over for two first-class rides at the end of the 1975 season. TheRoger Penske/CAM2 ride had gone to DaveMarcis, while the K&K Insurance ride had goneto Neil Bonnett. Both racing programs were inSTOCK CAR RACING

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cury team and that is becoming just as uncom-fortable as it is common. Despite the finaltopping-off-the-fuel-cell pitstop, Pearson didfinish in the same lap with Petty.Benny Parsons finished third, two laps off thewinning pace, having called upon Bobby Alli-son for relief in driving the First National CityTravelers Check Chevy. Parsons' need for reliefis understandable. The day was hot and very

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Wtrouble by the World 600 weekend. Both hadmissed several races and were off the Winner'sCircle program, worth $80,000 over the lengthof the season. Both were showing the raggededge of being away from the hectic pace of thecircuit for even one race. Marcis finished 36th,out after 168 laps with engine failure; Bonnettfinished seventh, six laps behind the winner,the car never competitive. Roger Penske hadmade an announcement that the CAM2 stockcar effort would be cut back to only majorevents;there was very serious talk in Charlottethat the K&K Insurance team would be dis-solved by owner Nord Krauskopf . . . or perhapssold if Harry Hyde could find a buyer.Pond's situation, on the other hand, hopelessfrom the beginning of the 1977 season, waslooking better with every race. He had beenshowing consistency, good speed and fine en-durance. He had talked of approaching RogerPenske with a pitch to allow him to run one ofthe Penske cars at Michigan in June. For theWorld 600 Pond won the annual Curtis TUrnerAchievement Award in a landslide for his de-termined run to fourth place.Fifth-place Buddy Baker, a f requent winner atCharlotte, claimed the problem that DarrellWaltrip, who finished in sixth place, cited: Pettywas just too fast and lhey were just too slow.Plain and simple.Neil Bonnett stayed with the Harry Hyde-prepared Dodge all day, but it was never athreat to the leaders. Dick Brooks finished ineighth place, eight laps behind the winner.Rookie Sam Sommers finished ninth, takingthe bonus for top-placing rookie, and addingmore points to his bid to be rookie-of-the-year.Skip Manning was tenth and Ron Hutchersonwas eleventh, having suffered two spin-outsduring the race, accounting for two of only sixcaution periods, none of them serious, seem-ingly a trend at the World 600 in recent years.Twenty-six of the 40 starters were still runningat the end, again in keeping with current trendsat the World 600, where attrition is seeminglynot a major problem considering the length of

the race and the weather.Besides Bobby Allison driving in relief forBenny Parsons, Ramo Stott, who dropped outafter only three laps, drove in relief for RonHutcherson and Connie Saylor, in his debut in aGrand National car, drove for the S1-year-oldG. C. Spencer, who has been fielding surpris-ingly fast cars in 1977.Petty's prize money for the day's workSEPTEMBER 1977

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TOP-Dean Dalton lost a wheel in the fourth turn and tried to slow his car down, only to have it proceed to catchfire, which was quickly extinguished. BOTTOM - Cale Yarborough's points lead seems to erode away asmechanical problems frequently beset his car during the mid-portion of the 1977 season. Howard O'ReillyPhotos.

FRIDAY AT THERACES-On Fridaybefore the World 600,during a practicesession, Rick Newsomand Bruce Jacobi(#78) came togetherviolently coming out ofthe fourth turn. HughLewis Photos.

amounted to $62,300, easily the most moneyever won at a stock car event. The previoushigh had been $51,850 at the 1971 Ontario 500,won by {.J. Foyt. The high first-place prize atDaytona's famous February 500-miler was$45,450 in 1971.Petty's response to the huge prize, $35,000of which came in the lap-leader segments, waspretty simple: "That'll pay a lot-a bills." B 39