October 4, 1981
Holly Farms 400
It has been mentioned that Richard Petty has visited victory lane at North Wilkesboro for the last time. It was time for another name to show the domination at the track that Petty had done so many times. The driver to do so would be Darrell Waltrip. Already with two NWS wins to his credit, he was about to go on a five race streak at the track that would never be matched. In this race, Waltrip started from the pole with a two day average qualifying time of 19.726sec/114.065mph. Waltrip led 318 laps in the race in the famous #11 Mountain Dew car owned by Junior Johnson. It was Waltrip’s 10th win of the season. In the second half of the 1981 season, Waltrip’s final 14 races consisted of 7 wins, five 2nd place finishes, a third and a sixth. He claimed his first of three Winston Cup Championships in 1981. It wasn’t easy—even with the great second half finish, he edged Bobby Allison by just 59 points at the season’s end—no chase format/playoffs either.
Bobby Allison was second to Waltrip in this race also. He started from the outside pole with numbers of 19.733sec/114.025mph. He led 76 laps, and led as late as lap 277, but would end up finishing a lap and a half behind Waltrip. It was Allison’s 20th top five finish at NWS.
Joe Millikan recorded his only top five finish at NWS on this day. He improved 9 spots over his 12th place start—20.077sec/112.068, and finished 3rd, one lap down. Growing up in the Randleman, NC area, Millikan got into racing by taking odd jobs at Petty Enterprises. He worked his way into the engine shop. He started racing at 21 years of age by taking on some of the tough Late Model Sportsman tracks around Randleman before joining the Cup ranks full time in 1979.
Also finishing a lap down was Dale Earnhardt, in the Wrangler sponsored Pontiac, owned by Richard Childress. Earnhardt’s qualifying laps averaged 19.944sec/112.815mph and put him tenth at the start of the race. He was running 4th, also a lap down at the end of the race. It was the seventh race in which Earnhardt drove for Childress. The two would work together for the remainder of the season, but would part ways after for the next two years before rejoining.
Finishing 5th, two laps down, was New England native Ron Bouchard. He started 14th in the field—20.100sec/111.940mph. Bouchard had a wealth of Modified racing experience under his belt when he entered the NASCAR ranks. Bouchard was the 1981 NASCAR Rookie of the Year, and scored his only career victory that year at Talladega just two months earlier.
The race lasted 2 hours, 41 minutes, 8 seconds. There were 8 caution periods for a total of 49 laps—laps 6-8, 23-33, 114-122, 175-182, 211-214, 244-248, 278-302, 359-362. Lap leaders were—Bobby Allison 1-31, Dave Marcis 32, Jody Ridley 33-36, Darrell Waltrip 37-114, Richard Petty 115, Waltrip 116-211, Allison 212-230, Waltrip 231-251, Allison 252-277, Waltrip 278-400. The day started with 30 cars and ended with 18 running at the finish. Running in his only NWS Cup race, Bob McElee started 24th and finished 8th, gaining 16 spots, the most of any driver. Joe Ruttman ran his NWS race and finished 26th.
