1977 Virginia 500 - NASCAR Race

Name of Race:	1977 Virginia 500
Name of Track:	Martinsville Speedway
Date:	April 24th

Martinsville Speedway is an International Speedway Corporation-owned NASCAR stock car racing track located in Martinsville, Virginia. At 0.526 miles in length, it is the shortest track in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series.

NASCAR Paperclip

The track was also one of the first paved "superspeedways" in NASCAR, being built in 1947 by H. Clay Earles. The track is often referred to as paper clip-shaped and is banked only 12° in the turns. The combination of long straightaways and flat, narrow turns makes hard braking going into turns and smooth acceleration exiting turns a must.

Original Ownership

The track ownership was a joint venture of brothers Jim and Bill France, Jr., and H. Clay Earles, the majority owner, along with daughters Dorothy Campbell and Mary Weatherford, and Dorothy Campbell's children, Sarah Fain and Clay Campbell.

Grandfather Clock Trophy

Winners of Martinsville's Nextel Cup and Whelen Modified Tour events receive a longcase clock as a trophy instead of a regular trophy, a tip of the cap to the fame of the Martinsville furniture industry. One of the neat things one can see while watching a NASCAR race is a Norfolk Southern train running along the tracks outside the speedway, although the tracks were recently moved back 100 feet.

$192 Million Price Tag

Although sold for $192 million in 2004, the track continues to prosper under the new ownership of International Speedway Corporation. The track hosts two Nextel cup races, currently the DirecTV 500 in April and the Subway 500 in October, along with Busch, Craftsman Truck, and Late Model Stock Car races. The track had plans to add an additional 20,000 seats along the backstretch, boosting capacity to over 85,000 seats, but nothing more has been officially mentioned regarding this by track management since the sale of the track to ISC.

Courtesy of Wikipedia.

1977 Virginia 500 NASCAR Race Results

Below are the race results for 1977 Virginia 500, in order of finishing place.

Fin	Driver	Num	Start	Money	Laps	Status	Sponsor
1	Cale Yarborough	11	5	$21,600	384	running	Holly Farms
2	Benny Parsons	72	4	$12,200	384	running	1st National City Travelers Checks
3	Richard Petty	43	10	$7,750	381	running	STP
4	Lennie Pond	54	8	$5,700	381	running	Ronnie Elder
5	David Pearson	21	7	$2,900	380	running	Purolator
6	Dick Brooks	90	13	$3,850	379	running	Truxmore
7	Bruce Hill	47	12	$1,650	370	running	Bruce Hill
10	Richard Childress	3	19	$2,620	369	running	Kansas Jack
11	Terry Bivins	81	15	$1,150	366	running	Valvoline
12	Neil Bonnett	71	1	$4,150	366	running	Auto Race Tracks
13	Cecil Gordon	24	26	$2,050	366	running	Cecil Gordon
16	Ferrel Harris	25	19	$1,570	356	running	Don Robertson
17	James Hylton	48	16	$1,435	346	running	Hylton Engineering
18	Henley Gray	19	22	$1,250	344	running	Belden Asphalt
19	Bobby Allison	12	6	$675	344	running	1st National City Travelers Checks
20	Dave Marcis	2	9	$2,850	343	running	Shoney's Big Boy
21	Darrell Waltrip	88	2	$3,340	322	brakes	Gatorade
22	Jimmy Hensley	63	17	$630	321	running	Lonesome Pine Raceway
23	Tommy Gale	64	28	$870	299	running	Sunny King
24	Buddy Baker	15	11	$2,810	258	clutch	Norris Industries
26	Donnie Allison	1	3	$590	226	brakes	Hawaiian Tropic
27	Skip Manning	92	14	$830	182	rear end	1st National City Travelers Checks