The five drivers that dominated the 1976 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season were David Pearson (average finish of 7th place), Cale Yarborough (average finish of 8th place), Richard Petty (average finish of 9th place), Benny Parsons (average finish of 10th place), and Bobby Allison (average finish 12th place).
Background
Ontario Motor Speedway was a motorsport venue located in Ontario, California. It was the first and only automobile racing facility built to accommodate major races sanctioned by all of the four dominant racing sanctioning bodies: USAC (and now IndyCar Series) for open-wheel oval car races; NASCAR for a 500-mile (800km) oval stock car races; NHRA for drag races; and FIA for Formula One road course races. Constructed in less than two years, the track opened in August 1970 and was considered state of the art at the time.[4][5]
The first full year of racing included the Indy-style open-wheel Inaugural California 500 on September 6, 1970; the Miller High Life 500 stock car race on February 28, 1971, the Super Nationals drag race on November 21, 1970 and the Questor Grand Prix on March 28, 1971. Each of these inaugural races drew attendance second only to their established counterparts, the USAC Indianapolis 500, the NASCAR Daytona 500, the NHRAU.S. Nationals, and the U.S. Formula One race at Watkins Glen.
Race report
There were 40 drivers on the grid;[3][6] 39 of them were born in the United States of America while Roy Smith was born in Canada.[2]Darrell Waltrip would earn the last-place finish of the race due to an engine issue on lap 10 of 200.[2][3][6] A grand total of $155,639 was awarded for this race ($833,351 in when adjusted for inflation); Pearson received $27,715 ($148,397 when adjusted for inflation) while Waltrip won $3,660 ($19,597 when adjusted for inflation).[6]
David Pearson defeated Lennie Pond by one lap in front of 44,702 people; giving Pearson at least one win at each of the 16 tracks in use at that time.[2][3] Petty lacked only Ontario (where he would never win).[2][3] There were four lead changes and two cautions for 19 laps in this three-hour-and-thirty-eight-minute race.[2][3][6][7] Pearson would earn the pole position with a top speed of 153.964 miles per hour (247.781km/h) while the average speed of the race was 137.101 miles per hour (220.643km/h).[2][3][6]
Former IndyCar driver Mike Hiss would make his only NASCAR start here.[2] This race saw the rare occurrence of both a husband and wife being entered in the same NASCAR race looking to race as IndyCar competitors Mike and Arlene Hiss both attempted to qualify for the race.[2] Arlene Hiss failed to qualify although the late Mike Hiss, as mentioned above, did both qualify for and finish the race.[2]
There was a brutal level of attrition due to mechanical problems in this race, even by 1976 standards.[2] Blown engines in addition to transmission failures and clutch failures forced a lot of the star drivers out of the race; allowing a lot of independent drivers to have decent finishes.[2]
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