Daytona Countdown: '81

Petty wins seventh; MTV debuts with Video Killed The Radio Star

While the rest of the leaders stopped for tires and fuel, Richard Petty took only one can of gas on his last stop, enough of an advantage to outlast Bobby Allison by 4 seconds in the 23rd Daytona 500 on Feb. 15, 1981. It was Petty's seventh victory in the Great American Race.

A 1981 Buick Riviera two-door coupe sold for $13,027. Petty could have purchased six Rivieras and 9,000 gallons of gas -- at the average price of $1.38 a gallon.

NASCAR ACCELERATION •   Know Your NASCAR •   Tickets for Daytona •   2004 Daytona 500 highlights •   Get TrackPass for 2005! ALSO IN 1981 ... •   American president Jimmy Carter proclaims, with support of the European Commission, a grain embargo against the USSR (Jan. 4)  •   Jean Harris shoots doctor Herman Tarnower, the inventor of the Scarsdale diet (March 10)  •   Rosie Ruiz wins the Boston Marathon but is later exposed as a fraud and stripped of her award (April 21)  •   The Cable News Network, or CNN, is launched in the United States (June 1)  •   Washington Post publishes Janet Cooke's story of Jimmy, an 8-year-old heroin addict -- later proven to be fabricated (Sept. 29)  Courtesy: Wikipedia

Space Shuttle Columbia lifted off on April 12, as Bob Crippen and John Young made 36 orbits. If Petty had driven his Riviera from Level Cross, N.C., to Titusville, Fla., to watch the liftoff in person, the 571-mile trip would have taken 10 and a half hours at highway speeds, or three hours and 22 minutes at Petty's winning average of 169.651 mph.

On Jan. 20, Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th President of the United States. Minutes later, 52 American hostages were released by Iran after 444 days of captivity.

On March 30, Reagan would be shot in the chest in an assassination attempt. He reported told wife Nancy: "Honey, I forgot to duck." While Vice President George Bush was actually next in the line of succession, Secretary of State Alexander Haig announced to reporters: "I am in control here."

Reagan recovered from his injuries sufficiently enough to fire 11,359 striking air-traffic controllers in August.

On May 13, Pope John Paul II was seriously wounded by Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca as he entered St. Peter's Square in Rome to address a general audience. On June 13, teen-ager Marcus Sargeant fired six blanks at Queen Elizabeth II.

On Oct. 6, while viewing a parade, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was assassinated by army members who were part of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization.

Wedding bells were ringing in 1981. On July 29, Prince Charles wed Lady Diana Spencer in front of 2,500 guests at St. Paul's Cathedral in London and an estimated television audience of 750 million in 74 countries.

A mid-season strike forced baseball to play a split season for the first time in modern history. Prince Charles and Lady Diana agreed split up on Aug. 28, 1996.

The second-most watched wedding in TV history came on Nov. 16, when Luke married Laura on the daytime drama General Hospital. Rick Springfield, who played Dr. Noah Drake on General Hospital, had one of the top selling singles in 1981 with Jessie's Girl.

The Boston studio group Afternoon Delight had a minor hit in 1981 with General Hospi-tale," five years after the Starland Vocal Band hit No. 1 with Afternoon Delight.

Eddie Van Halen and actress Valerie Bertinelli were married on April 11, as were Cary Grant and Barbara Harris and Sean Bean (Boromir in The Lord of The Rings) and Debra James. Ex-Beatle Ringo Starr and actress Barbara Bach were married on April 27.

Olympian Bruce Jenner and Linda Thompson were married on Jan. 5, while jazz great Miles Davis and actress Cicely Tyson were wed on Nov. 26. Trainer Constantine "Cus" D'Amato became future world heavyweight champ Mike Tyson's legal guardian in 1981.

On Aug. 1, Music Television debuted with Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles. By the end of the year, MTV VJs Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter, J.J. Jackson, Mark Goodman and Martha Quinn would be seen by 2.1 million subscribers.

In 1981, home computing became affordable, as the IBM PC, Commodore VIC-20, Sinclair ZX81 and Texas Instruments TI-99/4A were launched.

Current drivers born in 1981:
• Stuart Kirby (May 9)
• Justin Labonte (Feb. 5)
• Jon Wood (Oct. 25)

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