Nashville ~ One Giant Step
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Earlier
this week, as I sat in the John Glenn Theater of the Columbus Center of Science
and Industry I marveled at the spectacle before me on the Giant IMAX screen-
“Apollo 11: First Step Edition.” The
film was comprised of previously never before seen footage edited to tell the
story of man’s travel to the moon and return.
Like most everyone my age or older have for the last few weeks been
recounting where they were that day when Neil Armstrong uttered his famous
words as he made that first step onto the lunar surface.
Do
you remember where you were July 20,1969?
I do. Probably you do as well.
How
about less than a week later? Do you
remember where you were on July 26, 1969?
Probably
not, unless you were in Nashville at the Fairgrounds Speedway for NASCAR’s
Nashville 400. I remember it today because that is when I got to see my very
first Cup race.
Half
a century later I still remember the excitement that I was finally going to see
my driver, David Pearson take on the big dogs of the Grand National
Series-live. Not snippets on Wide World
of Sports but an entire 400 lap race! It
was like Christmas in July. And it
turned out to be everything (well almost everything) this twelve-year-old race
fan could have imagined.
My favorite driver,
David Pearson
But
that was then. Nowadays, we can’t tell
if we saw a good race or not without NASCAR using their statistics to tell us
so. Statistics-wise this race was a
stinker. On paper, no matter how you cut
it, it wasn’t a race that Steve O’Donnell would trot out his numbers and
printouts to convince us just how good a race it was.
Here’s
the stats. See what you think.
Twenty-four
cars started the race. Only nine were
running at the end. The pole-sitter,
Richard Petty won, leading 398 laps. He
relinquished the lead to David Pearson during a pit stop. It only took him two laps to return to the
front never to be behind again. Only
Petty and one other car, Bobby Isaac finished on the lead lap. Third place finisher, James Hylton finished
13 laps off the pace. My driver, David
Pearson finished sixth, 24 laps behind.
There were only 5 cautions for 18 laps to slow the race to a finish at
bit above 78 MPH, a new race record.
Petty’s winning margin was a half a car length. For his efforts he won $3000.
Statistically,
it stunk. Just looking at it today,
fans would have worn out social media complaining about it, calling for it to
be dropped from the circuit instead of clamoring for its return to the circuit
like they do today. Steve O’Donnell
would have ensured the race stats got buried, probably in the same spot Smokey
Yunick’s Hall of Fame nomination is located, never to see the light of
day. Spinmeisters would have written it
off as an anomaly and the media would have shifted focus to the next race...
the following evening at Maryville, TN.
Statistics
aside, the truth is the race was incredible!
Ride with me for a few paragraphs and see what you think about my first
Cup race.
Richard
Petty and Bobby Isaac made up the front row.
Petty had won here five of the last seven races here, but this time he
was in a Ford. Bobby
Isaac, who had won twelve races already this season was in his K & K
Insurance Dodge. My driver, David
Pearson won the race here last season, started behind Petty in the #17
Holman-Moody Ford. James Hylton was to
his outside. I had hoped that Pearson would
have won the pole, but he was still in a good position. I just knew it wouldn’t be long (first lap
probably) that he would get around the others and take the lead.
Standing,
watching the field of twenty-four take the green flag I saw that “cheater” Bobby
Isaac jump to a huge lead, only to slow and get passed by Petty. Back then, in my mind, every driver who
outran my driver had to be a cheater because that was the only way they could
ever possibly win. Asked later about the
start, Isaac explained that because of the enormous lead, he thought NASCAR had
waved off the start so he lifted. Petty speculated that Isaac knew he jumped
the start and lifted so as to not bring down the black flag of NASCAR. Didn’t matter-my driver was not out front.
Richard Petty leads...
in a Ford
Petty
was the class of the field that night and it wouldn’t be until he pulled off
the track for a pit stop that my dream was finally realized as I finally got to
see David Pearson in the lead. That
dream was short-lived, two laps… one mile, as Petty would move back to the
front when the Silver Fox would have to make his stop.
The
stifling Nashville heat soon became a factor and during caution flag on lap 130
Isaac pitted, but something was different as folks were gathered around the driver’s
door. Turns out Isaac had passed out
behind the wheel and crew chief Harry Hyde dragged him out of the car and laid
him on pit road where ambulance attendants administered oxygen to him. Hyde then worked to get relief driver Dave
Marcis strapped in and get the car back in the race. Marcis, who had parked his own Dodge because
of ignition problems was now back in race in the #71 but was way behind due to
the stop and driver change which dropped the K & K Dodge from contention...
or so I thought.
Racing
conditions and attrition continued to take its toll as car after car dropped
out as the heat and the stress mounted.
Three drivers just quit. Suspension issues took out three more. Two crashed out. Engine, fan belt, oil leaks and vibrations
took out more.
Fans
today have little understanding or appreciation of how big a part attrition
played in racing back then. Today’s cars
are almost bulletproof, but back then, just because a driver such as Petty had
a lead, a big lead even, it didn’t guarantee a win or even a good finish. As a fan, you like the drivers, held your
breath lap after lap hoping things would hold together just one more lap, just
one more lap, so they could bring it home.
As
relief driver Dave Marcis raced lap after lap, Bobby Isaac left the pits and
went to his personal vehicle where he laid across the hood for the next sixty
laps or so. On lap 200, Hyde flagged
Marcis into the pits and put Isaac back behind the wheel to try to finish the
race.
The
K & K Insurance Dodge, now multiple laps down was in hot pursuit of Petty’s
Torino and now we watched to see if Isaac could overcome the seemingly
impossible deficit. Lap after lap we
watched as the orange #71 cut into the lead and without benefit of Stage
breaks, Wave Arounds, Lucky Dogs and other competitive contrivances available
today started making up the multi-lap deficit created by the two driver
changes. Isaac got his final lap back by
tapping Petty and sending him into a wild spin down the front
straightaway. Petty never lost the lead,
and both raced on.
Lap
after lap, it was nothing but straight up old school racing.
The
heat applied by Isaac coupled with that in the Nashville air was taking a toll
on Petty. As we watched the laps wind
down and as the gap narrowed, fans begin to stand-cheering on the #43 to hang
on or the #71 to catch Petty and make the pass.
My driver, David Pearson, had fallen from third to sixth because of a
coil problem was running 20+ laps down, left little to cheer for. It was time to switch alliances and see if I
could help bring a different Ford home.
The
last ten laps saw the entirety of the 15,000+ fans on their feet, cheering with
all they had, hoping to be the difference for their driver. Everyone waited for Isaac put his bumper on
Petty and spin him again, this time for the win...
But
it never happened. When the Checkered
Flag dropped it was Richard Petty recording his 98th win, finishing 1/2 car
length ahead of Isaac.
After
the race, Petty needed oxygen and refused to get out of his car to join the
beauty queens until he got some oxygen.
I don’t know about anyone else there, but I was exhausted from watching
Isaac’s frantic charge and oxygen-I could have used a snort or two of it
myself.
Petty takes oxygen
after the race
Forget
O’Donnell’s stats, this passed the true “eye test.” It was one heck of a race! An incredible start to a now fifty-year
career attending NASCAR races.
We
had to get home, so we didn’t hang around for the Victory Lane
celebration. We later learned that Lynda
Petty delegated duties with the beauty queens to young Kyle. Nor did we get in line for Richard Perry’s
autograph, which stretched deep into the late night. But we did leave with a program, ticket
stubs, a ton of memories and a burning desire to see more Cup races.
It
was one giant leap for this race fan.
In
retrospect, the Nashville 400 had tons of ramifications, far beyond further
fanning the flames of this fan’s racing interests.
I
got the see Richard Petty win in a Ford.
Something only seen 10 times in his 200 career wins. That season, Petty would go over the century
mark in wins, getting #99 the next day in Maryville TN. Four races later at Winston-Salem, Petty
would break the century mark.
1969
saw my driver, David Pearson, win the Cup Championship. It was his third championship in four
years. I didn’t get to see him win the
race, but I got to see him race on his way to his final championship.
When
the 1969 season ended at Nashville, the entire facility was torn out and
rebuilt with the track lengthened and the 1970 race would be the 420 to reflect
the increased length. And the turns’
banking increased to an outrageous 35 degrees, the steepest in racing.
Bobby
Isaac won 17 of the 54 races that 1969 Cup season. It was his winningest season of his 15-year
career. He was the winningest driver
that season, besting Pearson and Petty, who won 11 and 10 races respectively. Isaac said after the Nashville race that the
only chance he had to win was to spin Petty again and he just wasn’t going to do
that. He also said that if he had been
able to stay in the car, he would have won the race. Next year, he came back to Nashville and
backed those words up, winning the race on his way to winning his only Cup
Championship.
Isaac
also said after Nashville that this was the first time that heat had affected
him that way. Fast forward eight short
years later, at a short track race at Hickory NC, history repeated itself as
heat forced Isaac to pit and exit his car, turning it over to a relief driver
only to then collapse on pit road. Isaac
was revived at the hospital but later died of a heart attack triggered by the
heat exhaustion. Was that night in
Nashville the beginning of his end?
Nashville
left the Cup scene in 1984... or more correctly, the Cup scene left
Nashville. Today, fifty years after my
first trip to the Fairgrounds as we called it then, there is a renewed interest
to bring it back. I’d love to see
that. The Fairgrounds made good memories
for me and helped fuel my fan career.
Maybe it can make good memories for this generation of fans.
No
matter what the stats might say.