The 1979 Sun-Drop Music City USA 420 as a NASCAR Winston Cup Series racing event that took place on May 12, 1979, at Nashville Speedway in Nashville, Tennessee.
By the following season, NASCAR had completely stopped tracking the year model of all the vehicles and most teams did not take stock cars to the track under their own power anymore. 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.
This race was a 420-lap race; Harry Gant would be credited with the last-place finish due to an engine problem after only 18 laps of racing.[1]
Cale Yarborough would defeat Richard Petty by nearly three seconds after almost three hours of racing action.[1] Yarborough would win his third Nashville race in a row along with his seventh and final Cup win at Nashville.[1] A small crowd of 16000 people would see only three caution periods (lasting 27 laps) and nine different changes concerning the leader of the race.[1] Joe Millikan would get his only pole position start here; qualifying at speeds up to 104.155mph.[1] Darrell Basham places 24th in his only Winston Cup start.[1]
McDuffie finished higher before but leading 111 laps had to make this his top race of all time.[1] He never had a race that he came close to leading this many laps in his entire career. Joe Millikan led the first 31 laps and McDuffie took the lead from him.[1] He led and later hooked fenders with Cale Yarborough while battling for second place during the 52nd lap. Both spun out but both were able to continue. McDuffie had a shot to win this thing when he took the lead from Richard Petty on the 250th lap, leading 27 more laps, but lost two laps when he had to pit for fresh tires.[1]
The finish was marred by controversy. Richard Petty and Bobby Allison asserted that Cale Yarborough was a lap down at the finish. Said Petty, "He lost one lap when he spun (with J.D. McDuffie), then he lost another when he spent 22 seconds in the pits." Allison agreed, saying, "Richard won this race and I finished second. I don't know how they had Cale winning."
A star-studded top ten finishing chart would include fan favorites like Bobby Allison, Dale Earnhardt, J.D. McDuffie, Richard Childress, Benny Parsons, Buddy Baker, Terry Labonte, and Ricky Rudd.[1] Al Elmore and Steve Spencer would make their NASCAR Cup Series debuts during this race.[2]
Notable crew chiefs for the race were Buddy Parrott, Tex Powell, Joey Arrington, Kirk Shelmerdine, Darrell Bryant, Dale Inman, and Jake Elder.[3]
The entire racing purse for this event was $70,100 ($ when adjusted for inflation).[4] Yarborough would receive $12,275 for winning ($ when adjusted for inflation) the race while last-place finisher Gant would only receive $360 of the total purse ($ when adjusted for inflation).[4]
| Grid | Driver | Manufacturer | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 72 | Joe Millikan | Chevrolet | |
| 2 | 28 | Buddy Baker | Chevrolet | |
| 3 | 88 | Darrell Waltrip | Chevrolet | |
| 4 | 11 | Cale Yarborough | Oldsmobile | |
| 5 | 43 | Richard Petty | Chevrolet | |
| 6 | 15 | Bobby Allison | Ford | |
| 7 | 2 | Dale Earnhardt | Chevrolet | |
| 8 | 27 | Benny Parsons | Chevrolet | |
| 9 | 70 | J.D. McDuffie | Chevrolet | |
| 10 | 44 | Terry Labonte | Chevrolet | |
| 11 | 47 | Harry Gant | Chevrolet | |
| 12 | 90 | Ricky Rudd | Ford | |
| 13 | 24 | D.K. Ulrich | Oldsmobile | |
| 14 | 48 | James Hylton | Chevrolet | |
| 15 | 19 | Steve Spencer | Buick |
Section reference: [1]
| Pos | Driver | Points | Differential | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Darrell Waltrip | 1767 | 0 | |
| 2 | 1746 | -21 | ||
| 3 | 1639 | -128 | ||
| 4 | 1557 | -210 | ||
| 5 | 1496 | -271 | ||
| 6 | 1451 | -319 | ||
| 7 | 1431 | -336 | ||
| 8 | 1346 | -421 | ||
| 9 | 1331 | -436 | ||
| 10 | 1318 | -449 |