Auto race held at Fairgrounds Speedway in 1977
Motor car race
The 1977 Music City USA 420 was a 420-lap race that took place on May 7, 1977, at Fairgrounds Speedway in Nashville, Tennessee.
Background
Nashville Speedway was converted to a half-mile paved oval in 1957, when it began to be a NASCAR series track. The speedway was lengthened between the 1969 and 1970 seasons. The corners were cut down from 35 degrees to their present 18 degrees in 1972.[citation needed]
Race report
The race itself took two hours, fifty-one minutes, and forty seconds from the first green flag to the checkered flag.[2] Benny Parsons was the race winner with an average speed of 87.49 miles per hour (140.80 km/h) while the pole position winner Darrell Waltrip had a speed of 103.643 miles per hour (166.797 km/h) and finished the race in 3rd place.[2] Cale Yarborough led the race with most number of laps (275) and was the points leader after the race for the NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship.[2] However, Benny Parsons would defeat him by one second.[2]
Ricky Rudd made his fourth 4th career top-10 finish at this race.[3]
Twenty thousand people attended this race that had a total prize purse of $56,350 ($272,126.25 in current US dollars).[2] The winner would leave the event earning an incredible $9,565 ($46,191.44 in current US dollars) while the last-place finisher would walk away with a meager $255 in cash earnings ($1,231.45 in current US dollars).[4]
Other notable names among the drivers included Ricky Rudd, Coo Coo Marlin, Richard Petty, Elmo Langley, and Richard Childress.[2] Notable crew chiefs included Buddy Parrott, Jake Elder, Joey Arrington, Kirk Shelmerdine, and Dale Inman.[5]
Paul Dean Holt would retire from NASCAR after this race after competing in 85 races while Ralph Jones would make his introduction into NASCAR racing during this race.[6]
Qualifying
Finishing order
Section reference:[2]
* Driver failed to finish race
