1979 Sun-Drop Music City USA 420

The 1979 Sun-Drop Music City USA 420 is a NASCAR Winston Cup Series racing event that took place on May 12, 1979, at Nashville Speedway in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S..

By the following season, NASCAR had completely stopped tracking the year model of all the vehicles and most teams did not take stock cars to the track under their own power anymore. Only manual transmission vehicles were allowed to participate in this race; a policy that NASCAR has retained to the present day.

Summary

This race was a 420-lap race; Harry Gant would be credited with the last-place finish due to an engine problem after only 18 laps of racing.^[2][3]

Cale Yarborough would defeat Richard Petty by nearly three seconds after almost three hours of racing action.^[2][3] A small crowd of 16000 people would see only three caution periods (lasting 27 laps) and nine different changes concerning the leader of the race.^[2][3] Joe Millikan would get his only pole position start here; qualifying at speeds up to 104.155 miles per hour (167.621 km/h).^[2][3] A star-studded top ten finishing chart would include fan favorites like Bobby Allison, Dale Earnhardt, J.D. McDuffie, Richard Childress, Benny Parsons, Buddy Baker, Terry Labonte, and Ricky Rudd.^[2][3] Al Elmore and Steve Spencer would make their NASCAR Cup Series debuts during this race.^[3]

The entire racing purse for this event was $70,100 ($227,784.82 when adjusted for inflation).^[4] Yarborough would receive $12,275 for winning ($39,886.71 when adjusted for inflation) the race while last-place finisher Gant would only receive $360 of the total purse ($1,169.79 when adjusted for inflation).^[4]

Standings after the race

References