Yarborough came up short in quest for four-in-a-row (cont'd)

"We were coming down the frontstretch and I noticed Buddy was a little bit loose," Yarborough said. "Then as we came through the dogleg, Buddy's car just turned sideways right at the start-finish line and I was right behind him. You know, I had nowhere to go. The only thing I could do to try to miss him was turn hard left, and I did."

Yarborough's evasive action only put him in more danger, as his No. 11 Oldsmobile then slid out of control through the infield grass.

"My car got sideways and Benny Parsons got me in the door," he said. "He had nowhere to go, either. From then on, it was just a wild ride down through the mud and the grass. My car, at one time, got airborne and stayed in the air for [what felt like] several minutes but I'm sure it was just seconds. Then when it came down, the car kept sliding down through the grass and the mud and finally slid up on the edge of the race track and stopped."

Other cars involved in the accident included Tighe Scott, Dick Brooks, Lennie Pond, a young driver named Dale Earnhardt and veteran Dave Marcis.

"I sat there for a little while and waited until I thought everything was over," Yarborough said. "Then I got out of my car to take a look at it and Dave Marcis' car was stopped fairly close to mine. As I walked out of my car down towards the front of it, another car came in and hit Marcis head-on, knocked him into me and just pinned me in between the two cars."

D.K. Ulrich, trying to get back to the pits with four flat tires, was rolling slowly along the track apron when he realized too late that he couldn't avoid hitting Marcis. And Yarborough had no time to leap out of the way.

"Marcis' bumper caught my legs on the tire, and I felt the tire give," Yarborough said. "And really I didn't know if that's what it was or not. For a minute there, I thought it had cut both my legs off. It hit hard and I thought I had at least broken my legs. I was fortunate enough to come out with bad bruises."

Amazingly, Yarborough escaped without serious injuries. Not only that, he climbed back into the cockpit six days later and won at Nashville.

"We were running at close to 200 mph when all this stuff started," Yarborough said. "And other than me getting hurt after I got out of the race car, everybody else walked away from it. It says a lot about the safety of the Grand National race cars."

However, the 33rd-place finish at Talladega, coupled with Allison and Waltrip running 1-2, put Yarborough in a hole out of which he could never extricate himself. He finished a miserable 20th in Daytona's Firecracker 400 and then blew engines at Talladega (24th) and Michigan (17th) to effectively end any chances of defending his crown.

Still, Yarborough wound up with seven top-five finishes, including a victory at Charlotte, in the season's final 10 races to finish third in the standings as Petty edged Waltrip by 11 points to take the title. Yarborough came close again in 1980, losing the championship by 19 points to Earnhardt in what would be his last full-time ride.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.