|| *Comments on the 1978 Dixie 500:* View the most recent comment <#26> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. nascarman posted: 05.15.2006 - 11:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Donnie Allison's last win. 2. nascarman posted: 05.15.2006 - 11:05 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Dale Earnhardt's first top 5. 3. Jay Coker posted: 08.13.2007 - 7:13 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) There was a HUGE scoring screwup with during the late stages of the race that cost Richard Petty the win. I remember reading about it in an old issue of Grand National Scene. 4. jackie posted: 09.03.2007 - 8:55 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Bill Elliott was driving an Olds . in this race. 5. RaceFanX posted: 01.04.2008 - 1:54 am Rate this comment: (3) (0) This is the race that made Dale Earnhardt a Cup driver. In a one-off for Rod Osterlund, Ralph's boy scored a strong top 5 that impressed Osterlund enough that he decided to hire the kid to drive for him full time in 1979 as a replacement for the departing Dave Marcis. The rest is history... 6. Clayton posted: 03.06.2009 - 11:04 am Rate this comment: (4) (0) This race was feautured in NASCAR scene this week. There was huge controversy surrounding this race. There was no electronic scoring back then and teams use to have individuals in special booths that marked down completed laps and they would be tailed to assure an offical finish. With that being said, this race had the craziest finish in NASCAR history. According to Steve Waid (who is awesome by the way!) there was 7 laps to go when a caution came out and there were only two cars on the lead lap according to the scoring montier at then Atlanta International Raceway. The scoreboard showed Donnie Allison, a lap down in fifth place. On the last lap, however, Allison leaped out and passed Petty and Marcis, but no one paid attention, thinking he was a lap behind. Petty then nipped Marcis at the line, and everyone thought that seemed to have ended Petty's losing streak that lasted longer than a year. But when the drivers went to the cool down lap, the public address annoucner announced Donnie Allison as the winner. Everyone in the press box was stunned. Allison had no doubt he had made up his lost lap and when he passed Petty and Marcis it was for the win. after that came the annoucment that agreed came from the offical scorers, that Petty was the winner. Everyone was confussed. Petty was doing his winner interview when he got a phone call in the press box. After he hung up, Petty said "Guys. that's it. They say Allison is the winner." and he left the press box. Reporters ripped up their stories and were going to start all over again. Brian France, who was 16 years old at the time, was working in the scoring booth at the time, insisted that Allison was the winner. He was so convinced that he mentioned it to Hoss Ellington, Donnie Allison's car owner. Allison said that Brian France had told him that Allison's scorer was pulling for Petty and not paying attention to the race. Another re-check of the scoring card proved France was right. NASCAR President Bill France Jr (Brian's dad) came in and announced that yes NASCAR had made an embarrassing mistake and that Allison was offically the winner. that was the end of it. Dave Marcis ended up 3rd. he left Rod Osterlund after this race and he got mad because, believe it or not, Osterlund had 3 cars in this race and Marcis never thought that multi-car teams would work and he wanted no part of it. I just thought this was interesting and wanted to share it. thanks to Steve Waid for the info! 7. 00andJoe posted: 10.28.2010 - 8:12 pm Rate this comment: (2) (0) According to Mark Bechtel's new book on the 1979 season, Marcus left Osterlund more precisely because this cocky new rookie named Earnhardt didn't seem to know his place, and Osterlund wasn't helping to remind him of said place. 8. 18fan posted: 04.28.2011 - 10:25 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Allison's scorer was apparently a diehard Petty fan and the controversy came when she missed one of Allison's laps while standing up and watching Petty make a pass in turn 2. 9. gearhead15 posted: 12.18.2011 - 5:49 pm Rate this comment: (3) (0) I was there. With about 20 laps to go the caution came out with Donnie Allison two laps down. Donnie raced the leaders back to the line and made up one lap. Everyone was watching the battle between Dave Marcis and Petty, the crowd was pulling for Petty to break his season-long losing streak and win his first race in a Chevy. No one noticed that Donnie passed Dave and Petty on the restart and was running just ahead of them on the tail end of the lead lap when there was a crash with about 10 laps to go. Donnie restarted behind them and immediately passed both Dave and Petty to take the lead, but everyone in the place thought he was still a lap down. He finished the race about ten car lengths ahead of Petty, with Marcis finishing alongside Petty about ten feet behind. 10. 1995z71 posted: 12.16.2012 - 8:19 pm Rate this comment: (4) (0) Funny 00andJoe, Dave Marcis would spend most of his later career testing cars for RCR, mostly because Dale Earnhardt hated testing. 11. b4il3y posted: 01.11.2013 - 2:08 am Rate this comment: (0) (1) wheres the 3rd osterlund car? 12. Ryan posted: 03.11.2013 - 11:42 pm Rate this comment: (2) (0) Brian France being smart?? 13. Sebastien posted: 06.26.2013 - 5:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) First race of the Labonte Bros streak, at least a Labonte in the race, streak which ended 35 years later at Sonoma on june 23rd, 2013. 14. Sebastien posted: 06.26.2013 - 5:05 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) My bad, ignore the #13 post, sorry. 15. 83andJoe posted: 09.15.2013 - 5:34 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) >wheres the 3rd osterlund car? Marcis 3rd, Earnhardt 4th, Neil Bonnett 34th. 16. Bullet posted: 08.10.2016 - 7:35 pm Rate this comment: (2) (3) Glad Petty did not win 17. Matt T posted: 07.12.2018 - 1:07 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) Caution #1: Car fires outside the track? Surprised no one has mentioned this 18. Steve Culpepper posted: 11.09.2018 - 10:01 pm Rate this comment: (2) (0) This was my first NASCAR race to attend. I drove to Hampton from my home in Alabama with my wife and another couple. There was a caution early in the race with smoke drifting over the track. It was a great race but I became anxious as the smoke appeared to come from the area where I had parked. Mid-race I made a bathroom excuse and went to find my car. Try as I might I couldn't find it among the 50 to 60 cars that had somehow caught fire....until the 4th or 5th time I passed it. It was a new car that had burned and completely destroyed. I was relatively calm until I saw a 1970 Mustang next to my car with only the rear end showing it had probably been recently restore. Luckily I had a friend in Atlanta for the weekend and another living in Marietta. A very nice family of fans gave my group a ride to Marietta in their camper where we met up with my friend who had us back home about the time we would have gotten back anyway. A great thing that happened was riding next to the transport crew for rookie driver Terry Labonte. They were very friendly and won a Labonte fan in me. When we got home my friend who had gone with me insisted on calling my insurance agent who was a friend of his. My buddy explained what had happened and my agent sleepily asked what was I doing racing my car. I had concluded my car was a bit of a lemon and the insurance covered the car at over 100% of what I paid 6 months earlier. I got to see Donnie Allison win for "The Alabama gang". A great NASCAR adventure. 19. Tromblumkin posted: 05.29.2019 - 10:32 pm Rate this comment: (2) (0) According to Dave's interview on the scene vault podcast, he intentionally let up to give Petty the lead during this race. With the scoring controversy it ended up being a 2nd/3rd place swap. But Dave contends he was so mad at Osterlund for firing his crew chief earlier in the season without explanation. Fascinating interview and fun to look back through the race results. 20. Steve posted: 10.03.2019 - 2:00 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) You know scoring is messed up when Bri-guy is the one who correctly sorts it out. 21. Anonymous posted: 12.03.2019 - 5:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) I wonder if Bobby or Donnie Allison ever told a story where someone was actually on their side? Poor guys go through life thinking everyone and their mothers are always against them. 22. possum posted: 12.03.2019 - 8:25 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) @21 - I had to LOL at that one. Of course, they do tell stories where Red Farmer was on their side, but I think everyone else at Hialeah Speedway was against them. @20 - given how scoring worked in those days, I have a lot of doubt about the accuracy of that story. More likely that someone added Brian's role well after the fact, when being in his good favor was worth something. 23. Jerome posted: 05.04.2020 - 2:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Earnhardt's crew chief was everyone's favorite person. Roland Wlodyka. 24. Anonymous posted: 09.01.2020 - 1:52 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Bill Elliott's car in this race was an Oldsmobile owned by Roger Hamby. 25. rateus posted: 02.13.2021 - 8:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Tommy Gale moved into the car qualified by Bobby Wawak after missing the field in his own ride. 26. Ryan posted: 03.06.2021 - 7:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Dave Marcis admitted he purposely lost this race in a scene vault podcast interview ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: