NASCAR GETS A ‘WATER-COOLER’ RACE

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an excerpt from “NASCAR 75 Years,” a book that provides the ultimate history of NASCAR stock car racing, celebrating the sport’s drivers, crew chiefs, pit crews, car owners and race tracks.

By the mid-1970s, NASCAR’s premier Cup Series was beginning to slowly gain traction in America’s sports consciousness.

As a start, stock car racing had become hugely popular in the Southeast and along the Eastern seaboard. Major races often attracted upward of 100,000 fans and regional media. And television had finally discovered what Southerners had been bragging about for years. Compared to previous decades, the sport was doing well.

But nationally, racing still lagged behind college basketball and football, professional football and baseball, and the occasional major golf and tennis tournaments. The media generally tolerated racing but displayed no deep-seeded interest in closely following it, even with popular superstar Richard Petty leading the way.

One race midway through the ’70s helped NASCAR begin to change that perception.

On Feb. 15, 1976, Mercury-driving David Pearson and

BY AL PEARCE

Dodge-driving Petty began the last lap of the season-opening Daytona 500 locked together, Petty leading by several car lengths. Pearson, famous for being crafty and opportunistic, was content in second until dipping low to pass entering Turn 3. He went by cleanly and easily moved in front of Petty. In Turn 4, Petty countered with a lowside pass of his own to briefly regain the lead. But Petty misjudged the gap as he moved over to clear Pearson along the short chute. They touched off Turn 4, lost control, slammed the outside wall, and began sliding toward the start/finish line, about 600 yards distant. Despite heavy damage, Pearson kept his car running; Petty’s heavily damaged car stalled in the tri-oval grass and wouldn’t restart. He could do nothing but watch in frustration as Pearson chugged past, taking the checkered flag at perhaps 25 mph.

“Nobody knew it then, but that was the race that got everything going,” long-time motorsports writer and broadcaster Dr. Dick Berggren said years later. “It was the first ‘water-cooler’ race, the first time that people had stood around water coolers on Monday and talked about seeing a race on TV the day before. It took a while – years, maybe – to realize how important it was.”