Memories of a special 500 in '79 (cont'd)

I know I wore a winter jacket and had my cap pulled down as low as it would go in an attempt to keep my face warm. My dad had on a wool overcoat -- goodness knows where he had stored it, since it would have been unnecessary in south Florida.

I also made a major miscalculation. The year before, I got to the track way too early and sat around the parking lot for four hours, so I decided to sleep in an extra hour. Big mistake.

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By the time I reached the Highway 92 exit on Interstate 95, the Florida Highway Patrol had closed the ramp, forcing me to travel to the next exit -- Port Orange -- and double-back on city streets. Unknown to me at the time, it turns out my father had the same problem going the other way, and was well north of the track.

With the rain, the detours and the race traffic, it took me nearly three hours to get back to Mainland High School -- just outside of Turn 4 -- where I went ahead and parked by the football field. In those days, there was nothing between the school and the track except the two-lane road that connected the airport to International Speedway Boulevard.

So it was a good half-mile hike to the meeting point, although the rain had tapered off by then. Dad wound up parking somewhere near the present location of the Bob Evans restaurant on ISB.

One thing he remembered that I didn't was seeing several heavily damaged racecars on open flatbed haulers sitting in the track parking lot that morning, all involved in the Sportsman 300 race from the day before. There had been a huge accident in that race involving driver Don Williams, who would remain in a coma for 10 years before eventually succumbing to his injuries.

We went inside, found our seats, and Dad had been smart enough to bring a couple of seat cushions with him, so we didn't have to sit on the soaked wood bleachers. Track drying was under way -- no jet dryers in those days -- so I don't remember a pre-race parade.

One thing I found unusual was that NASCAR officials then let Darrell Waltrip get in his No. 88 Oldsmobile and take a couple of hot laps to determine if the track was dry to enough to start the race. To this day, I don't know why he was chosen (or volunteered) and what would have happened had he wrecked the car.

In an effort to speed up track drying, the race was started under caution and remained that way for the first 16 laps. From that point on, the rain stayed away and the race unfolded very much like most of that era, with the field breaking into smaller packs of four or five cars.

Our seats allowed us to see most of the banking in Turns 3 and 4, then the straight directly in front of us all the way down to the start-finish line. Because of the retaining wall and the old Goodyear building, we were unable to see any of the pit lane -- and only the section of Turns 1 and 2 where the cars were up on the banking.

So much of the early action occurred out of our field of view. The first accident involving Donnie Allison, Cale Yarborough and Bobby Allison was on the backstretch -- and all we could see from our vantage point was smoke and water spray over the top of the RVs parked in the infield. It wasn't until the cars rolled slowly by us that we could determine the extent of the damage.

That was the same with the five-car wreck that took out David Pearson a few laps later. The only accident that happened right in front of us involved Neil Bonnett, Terry Labonte and Harry Gant. Gant's car wound up blocking the track directly in front of us -- and I still wonder how everyone avoided drilling him as he sat helpless in the middle of the racing groove.

In addition, we were unable to see the scoring pylon, so we had no idea how many cars were on the lead lap except when they were packed up under caution. We were unaware that Yarborough had been several laps down, but had worked his way back onto the lead lap.

The final green came out with more than 50 laps to go -- and from that point on, it was obvious that the two best cars remaining on the lead lap were those of Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough. They built a huge lead over A.J. Foyt, Richard Petty and Waltrip, running nose to tail a full half-lap behind.

There had been a tremendous amount of attrition, and less than half of the cars were still running, spread out all over the track. (Continued)