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Darrell Waltrip and his Junior Johnson Mountain Dew Crew
celebrate his 1982 Cracker Barrel 420 win.
This would be Waltrip's fifth victory in the ten races contested
during the 1982 season.
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Darrell Waltrip led 419 laps of the 420 lap event to claim his
fifth Winston Cup Grand National series event at the Fairgrounds.
This would be the first start for Bill
Terry Racing. Terry would go on to team with Alan Kulwicki
for the 1985 and 1986 seasons.
 James
Hylton was sponsored by Dal-Kawa Cycle of Hendersonville, NC.
The car (right) was painted yellow on the left side with Suzuki
sponsorship on the quarter panel and gray on the right side with
Kawasaki sponsorship on the quarter panel. NASCAR stated
that the car confused scorers and told him to not bring this
particular paint scheme back to the track. This was the
only time that this paint scheme appeared on a Hylton car in
NASCAR competition.
The Bud Moore Ford
Thunderbird of driver Dale Earnhardt |
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Race winner Darrell
Waltrip drives into the speedway's third turn |
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Tim Richmond collected a
seventh place finish in his Buick Regal |
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Ricky Rudd qualified eight
but unfortunately left the race early due to engine
problems
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 At present, it would hard to imagine that a veritable nobody off
the street could somehow enter and qualify for a NASCAR Cup
Series race at Talladega. Amazingly that
happened in May 1982 for the running of the Winston 500. Even
more amazing was the fact he out qualified Slick Johnson in the
Hylton Buick and J.D. McDuffie in his
Pontiac.
Wright somehow managed to coax his Chevrolet to a
qualifying lap of 187 mph.
During April 1982, a person called L.W.
Wright (pictured at left), passed himself off to others as a
veteran driver and issued the following press release to the Nashville
Tennessean:
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Nashville driver L.W. Wright
yesterday announced he will be attempting to qualify for
next week's Grand National race at Talladega, Ala.
The 33-year-old
Wright, a veteran of 45 Grand National races, will drive
a 1981 Monte Carlo.
The name of
Wright’s team is
Music
City Racing, and among his
sponsors are country music stars Merle Haggard and T. G.
Sheppard. Haggard is scheduled to appear at
Talladega
with his driver.
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Wright, who lived in a rental house on Anchor Drive in
Hendersonville,
Tennessee, asked local Nashville businessman Bernie Terrell, owner of
Space Age Marketing, to finance his efforts.
Terrell gave Wright $37,000 for the car plus expenses as
well as the usage of a tractor trailer for transportation.
A 1981 Chevrolet Monte Carlo was purchased from
Columbia,
Tennessee’s Sterling Marlin, who would also
serve as the car’s crew chief at
Talladega.
NASCAR was also taken by Wright for
$1,500 via a bad check written for competitor and crew member
licenses. The other “team members” of Music City Racing were
Lloyd Barber, Rick Wright, Willis Judd, Ellis White, William
Dunaway, Michael Smith and Freddy Case.
Wright also wrote bad checks to Goodyear for tires
($1,800); Travis Tiller for parts ($1,500) and Southern Textile
Associates for Jackets ($168).
Wright miraculously qualified for the
race but was black-flagged for being too slow on lap 13.
His Music City
Motorsports Chevrolet Monte Carlo finished next to last. Wright
was scheduled to compete at the following week’s Cracker Barrel
420 at Fairground’s Speedway
in Nashville.
However, he left his equipment at
Talladega
where it was recovered by Terrell. Officially, NASCAR
lists Wright and the 34 car as a "DNQ" for the Nashville race.
 The car would be campaigned in July’s
Busch Nashville 420 by
Murfreesboro,
Tennessee
native Daryl Sage (pictured at right during the race) under
the Space Age Marketing banner.
In all, Sage and the 1981
Monte Carlo
would compete in eight NASCAR Winston Cup Series events during
the 1982 and 1983 seasons
The whereabouts of L.W. Wright still
remain a mystery…..
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