1977 Nashville 420
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Race 17 of 30 in the 1977 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series | |||
| Date | July 16, 1977 | ||
| Official name | Nashville 420 | ||
| Location | Nashville Speedway, Nashville, Tennessee | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility 0.596 mi (0.959 km) |
||
| Distance | 420 laps, 250.3 mi (402.8 km) | ||
| Weather | Hot with temperature approaching 98.1 °F (36.7 °C); wind speeds up to 8 miles per hour (13 km/h) | ||
| Average speed | 78.999 miles per hour (127.137 km/h) | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | DeWitt Racing | ||
| Most laps led | |||
| Driver | Darrell Waltrip | DiGard Motorsports | |
| Laps | 300 | ||
| Winner | |||
| No. 88 | Darrell Waltrip | DiGard Motorsports | |
| Television in the United States | |||
| Network | untelevised | ||
| Announcers | none | ||
The 1977 Nashville 420 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series (now Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series) event that took place on July 16, 1977, at Nashville Speedway in Nashville, Tennessee.
Only manual transmission vehicles were allowed to participate in this race; a policy that NASCAR has retained to the present day.
Nashville Speedway was converted to a half-mile paved oval in 1957, when it began to be a NASCAR series track. The speedway was lengthened between the 1969 and 1970 seasons. The corners were cut down from 35 degrees to their present 18 degrees in 1972.
Four hundred and twenty laps were done on a paved oval track spanning .596 miles (0.959 km) for a grand total of 250.3 miles (402.8 km). The race took three hours, ten minutes, and nine seconds to successfully complete.Darrell Waltrip defeated Bobby Allison by more than one lap in front of seventeen thousand and five hundred people. This race was important to Waltrip as this track was considered his "local" Winston Cup Series track at the time. Ten cautions were given for fifty-four laps. Notable speeds were: 78.999 miles per hour (127.137 km/h) as the average speed and 104.21 miles per hour (167.71 km/h) as the pole position speed. Total winnings for this race were $56,175 ($222,016.19 when adjusted for inflation) and the winner walked away with $9,415 of that amount ($37,210.19 when adjusted for inflation).
Waltrip was overcome by the excessive heat shortly after the race. As a result, he took oxygen while on top of his vehicle's hood and wasn't lucid enough to give a post-race interview. Ronnie Thomas was supposed to make his debut on this track but got into a wreck and didn't get it fixed in time to qualify. He would make his debut in the 1977 running of the Old Dominion 500 (now Tums Fast Relief 500) instead.
Mike Kempton made his official NASCAR debut in this event while Henley Gray would retire from professional stock car racing as a driver after this event.
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