The Wide World of Dirt

Johnson and Yarborough stumbled out of the gate in 1976.

Though they finished second at Riverside to open up the season, that was undone by a blown engine on the first lap of the Daytona 500 on their way to a last-place finish.

They brought a fast car to Rockingham the next week but got in an accident on lap 374 that limited their speed, coming home two laps down in 3rd.

Cale led about 80 laps the following week at Richmond before wrecking out with less than 15 laps to go. Luckily, he salvaged a top-5 out of the misfortune.

Junior and Cale brought a mean machine to Bristol that led the most laps and took them to their first victory of the season, and they backed that up with a 3rd-place finish in Atlanta after leading the most laps.

The duo got back to their winning ways in North Wilkesboro, with Cale taking the lead from The King with 67 laps to go. After pacing the field for all but 36 of the race’s 400 laps, Cale brought home yet another short track victory.

A blown engine at Darlington the next week threw a hitch in their stride, but runner-ups at Martinsville and Talladega stopped the bleeding and gave Cale the points lead.

Cale kept up his short track dominance, leading 398 of 420 laps at Nashville on his way to the winner’s circle before a blown motor at Dover the next week halted them again.

Junior and Cale lost the points lead due to the miscue, but strong runs at Charlotte, Riverside, and Michigan kept them in contention while title rival Benny Parsons struggled.

Thanks to a dominant car at Michigan where Cale led the most laps, a 2nd-place allowed the team to regain the points lead in the Great Lakes State.

This was the turning point in the #11 team’s season, righting the ship going into the summer, and their hard work would pay off.

Yarborough extended his lead the next week in the series’ return trip to Daytona. Amidst the fireworks on and off the track, Cale guided the field for 71 of the event’s 160 laps on the way to his fourth win of the year.

Despite being the favorite going into Nashville, the #11 team was hardly a factor in a race Parsons had under control from the drop of the green flag.

Mechanical problems plagued the team the next week at Pocono, and with Parsons finishing 3rd, Cale coughed up the point lead.

Though Cale had another awful day at Talladega, Benny had a worse one in the southern heat, finishing 39th, second-to-last.

Cale took the points lead by a slim 37 points that day, and he never looked back.

Another strong run at Michigan and a statement win at Bristol extended the gap. Yarborough withstood the challenges of Parsons even with a nightmarish Southern 500, but a new contender emerged: Richard Petty.

Knowing they needed to step up, Cale won the next four races in a row, and wouldn’t you know it, they were all at short tracks.

He led the most laps in all four races as well, giving his opponents a steep hill to climb going into the final four races of the season.

Unable to sustain their success, Junior and Cale remained steady up front while Petty faltered. A DNF in Atlanta sealed Petty’s fate as Yarborough captured the title a race early with a 4th-place finish.

Even a blown clutch at Ontario the next week couldn’t keep the trophy out of Junior and Cale’s hands.

In all, Cale scored 9 wins, 22 top-5s, and 23 top-10s, which was already one of the best seasons in the modern era, but Junior wanted to top that.

The #11 team already had a stranglehold on the competition going into 1977, but this season would make their competitors turn blue.

Cale led the most laps at Riverside on his way to a runner-up finish before leading the final 28 laps the next week on his way to winning the Daytona 500, his first with Junior.

Cale poured it on thick at Richmond, running away with the laps led bonus and the race before the rain came to stop the beating.

Two top-10s in the next two races gave way for the team to go into North Wilkesboro and embarrass the field, leading 320 of 400 laps on their way to victory #3.

The team’s worst run of the season up to that point came the next week at Darlington where Cale struggled to a 16th-place finish, one of three finishes outside of the top 10 all season.

Remember how I said this season was dominant?

Over the next eight races, Junior and Cale won four of them.

The team put on a clinic at Bristol, leading 495 of 500 laps and beating second-place finisher Dick Brooks by seven (7) laps.

Rain came down again in Virginia for Cale with a win in Martinsville, and after two second-place runs at Talladega and Nashville, he returned to victory lane at Dover.

A disastrous run in the World 600 meant the Holly Farms team left the Queen City with their worst result of the season.

The 24th-place finish was their low point of the season, but it didn’t keep them down long.

A third at Riverside gave way to another barnstorming performance at Michigan where Cale led the most laps on his way to his 7th victory in 15 races.

While Junior and Cale ran ramshod on the field almost every single week, they weren’t really running away with the points lead, mainly because Richard Petty wouldn’t let them.

Despite two finishes of 20th or worse in the first 15 races, Richard racked up four wins and 12 top-5s, relatively keeping up with Cale and waiting for him to slip up.

Richard closed the gap the next week as he won the Firecracker 400 while Cale fought mechanical problems in the race’s second half, finishing 23rd.

Over the next couple weeks, Petty outran Yarborough to take the points lead after Pocono.

This was the only race of the entire season that Cale hadn’t lead the points.

And it wouldn’t last long.

A runner-up finish from Junior and Cale in Alabama vaulted them back above Richard, and two weeks later at Bristol, Cale reclaimed his short track throne, leading 299 of 400 laps on his way to the winner’s circle while Richard sat in the garage with a wrecked race car, 

Richard’s inconsistencies crept up on him as the season drew to a close while Cale continued to shine. A win at Martinsville put Cale’s win total at nine on the year before finishing the season with an absolutely ridiculous 386-point lead in the final standings.

To put it into context, Cale’s worst finish in the last 14 races of the season was 6th.

Junior and Cale ended one of the most virtuosic seasons in the NASCAR history with 9 wins, 25 top-5s, 27 top-10s, and 0 DNFs through 30 races, culminating in a 4.5 average finish.

To this day, Cale still holds the modern era record for the best average finish for a whole season, and nobody has really come within a whole place of his record.

Not Petty.

Not Earnhardt.

Not Gordon.

Not Johnson.

Nobody has found a way to touch it.

Yes, this was in an era where there were significantly less competitive cars in the field, but this level of dominance is absolutely unparalleled.

No matter what, this record will never be broken.

With two championships under their belt and coming hot off the heels of the greatest statistical season in NASCAR history, Junior and Cale were not running short on momentum coming into the 1978 season.

The duo’s success attracted a new sponsor in 1st National City Travelers Checks, and they moved away from Chevrolets in favor of an Oldsmobile.

Normally, a manufacturer change would cause people to raise their eyebrows, considering their immense success with Chevy, but Junior and Cale earned the benefit of the doubt.

This success brought an obstacle: they were repeat champions who just put together the most impressive season in the sport’s history.

How does anyone adequately follow that up?

Winning 10 times.

Just like ‘77, Junior and Cale wasted no time by showing the NASCAR world who was top dog, passing Benny Parsons with 25 laps to go and winning the first race of the season at Riverside, grabbing the familiar first-place points spot.

A runner-up in the Daytona 500 and a third at Richmond precipitated a bad run at Rockingham, but with top-5s in Atlanta and Bristol, the 18th-place finish at the Rock seemed like an anomaly.

Before they could blink, Junior and Cale racked up three finishes of 15th or worse in a row.

Cale led most of the race at Darlington before his engine went sour with about 50 to go, ending the race in 15th. His engine woes continued at North Wilkesboro the next week, overheating relegating him to a disappointing 26th-place finish.

Cale and Junior brought a quick car to Virginia and paced the field for much of the first half of the race, but mechanical issues struck again, leaving the #11 car in 16th, 57 laps down.

In a span of six races, Cale went from leading the points to stewing in third, a full race worth of points behind leader Benny Parsons.

What followed is one of the best turnarounds in NASCAR history.

The defending champs brought a missile to NASCAR’s biggest and baddest track, sitting on the pole for the Winston 500.

After leading the most laps, Cale drafted behind Buddy Baker until the final lap when Cale used the slingshot to get by him, scoring his second victory of the season.

Two top-5s at Dover and Charlotte propelled Yarborough into the Music City where he led every single lap of the 420-lap event and put two laps on the rest of the field.

With the win, Junior and Cale reclaimed the points lead, a lead they would never relinquish.

A strong run at in the series’ return to Riverside ended in comparative disappointment. Though Cale led most of the first half of the race, his car began to fade, and he finished fifth, one lap down.

Junior and Cale brought another rocket to Michigan, and it provided a role reversal from the week before. Cale shot to the lead with 59 laps to go and left the field eating dust.

Another bridesmaid effort at Daytona provided fuel to the fire as the #11 team rocked back into the Music City.

Sitting on the outside pole like they did only a few races before, Cale led the field for 411 of the 420 laps and put another two laps on his closest competitor.

It was utter domination in Nashville for Junior and Cale, leading all but 9 of 840 laps between the two races, but it was just par for the course for Junior’s team on short tracks.

A terrible 26th-place run at Pocono the next week put a stop to an eight-race stretch for Cale where he won four times and finished no worse than fifth.

By that point in the year, even that awful finish couldn’t bring the field back into the championship hunt.

Junior and Cale were just too good.

They proved that the next week by bouncing back with a fourth-place finish at Talladega. The series returned to Michigan the next week where Cale’s car came to life toward the end of the race, but he ran out of time trying to catch Pearson, finishing second.

Junior and Cale came back to the world’s fastest half-mile in Bristol with their short-track car, and their competitors were given no quarter.

Cale took the lead with a little under 200 laps remaining and won the race, extending their lead in the standings to 133 points ahead of Petty with nine races to go.

They brought the most dominant car to Darlington for the Southern 500 where Cale conquered the egg-shaped oval, pacing the field for 203 laps on the way to victory lane.

Two top-5s at Richmond and Dover followed before the series returned to the Paperclip where Cale put on a clinic.

Though he led 372 laps, Darrell Waltrip put on a strong charge at the end, but Cale put a stop to that, ripping the win out of Waltrip’s hands with 13 laps to go.

A role reversal nearly took place the next week at North Wilkesboro. Waltrip commanded the field for the entire race up to lap 380 when Cale closed in on him.

Cale outmaneuvered the young Tennessean, making the pass on lap 382 and never looking back, stealing the win from a heartbroken Waltirp.

An awful 22nd-place run at Charlotte stunted the team’s momentum heading into the season’s homestretch, but Junior and Cale already put the points battle out of reach.

Another win at Rockingham the next week solidified what was known more than 10 weeks before: Junior and Cale clinched their record-breaking third title.

An 8th in Atlanta and a 2nd at Indianapolis’ California sibling Ontario bookended another marvelous campaign from the Carolina Crew, finishing with 10 wins, 23 top-5s, and 24 top-10s with an average finish of 6th.

The run these two were on looked like it would never end.

Cale was still in his prime as a driver, and Junior was as clever as ever. Most thought they would never see a run like this ever again, and that was a fair assumption.

After a season where Richard Petty failed to win a single race, it appeared no one would step up to contend week-in and week-out against Junior and Cale in the foreseeable future.

But, a new foe entered the fray.