March 25, 1979
"Northwestern Bank 400"
The race took on a new name. For 20 races, it had the title of Gwyn Staley. The spring race was now known as the Northwestern Bank 400.
Benny Parsons bested the field of 30 during qualifying with a speed of 108.136 mph. But in the end, Bobby Allison’s Ford bested the field on race day. The next highest finishing Ford was in 14th. Spots 2-13 were filled with 11 Chevys and 2 Oldsmobiles. Finishing 3.5 seconds behind Allison was Richard Petty. Petty led the most laps that day—211. Benny Parsons finished third and rookie, Dale Earnhardt finished fourth. These were the only cars on the lead lap. The first car, one lap down in 5th was Darrell Waltrip. The race saw 4 caution periods for a total of 32 laps. 23 cars were running at the finish. There were 20 lead changes between 11 different drivers—2 of which were JD McDuffie and Richard Childress as they each went on to post one of their 8 top-10 career NWS finishes.
Two rookies and future multi winners of the Winston Cup Championship took to the track that day. Dale Earnhardt, 26 years old at the time, started 5th and finished 4th. And Terry Labonte, 22 years old, started 30th and worked his way to a 15th place finish. Both drivers would go on to have tremendous success at the track. Each driver would run a total of 36 different races at NWS. Earnhardt had 5 wins, 21 top-5 finishes, 32 top-10 finishes and had one pole. Labonte’s numbers were 4 wins, 15 top-5’s and 27 top-10’s and 2 poles. There aren’t very many drivers who can claim to have that kind of success on the 5/8 mile track.