Baker finally gets his Daytona 500 win

EDITOR'S NOTE: In the run-up to the 2010 Daytona 500, Tom Higgins reflects on key races from each decade. This installment, the third of a five-part series, is about the 1980 race.

Buddy Baker was beyond exhilarated.

"It's going to be a long time before this smile fades from my face," the witty Baker said, beaming. "No one could get it off right now even if they used mortician's wax!"

The reason for Buddy’s glee:

After 19 years of trying in the Daytona 500 and often coming agonizingly close to victory, NASCAR's fun-loving “Gentle Giant” finally had won.

And Baker did so in rousing, record style on Feb. 17, 1980, averaging a stunning 177.602 mph at Daytona International Speedway, where the 500 looms this year on Feb. 14.

Big Buddy’s speed easily smashed the previous mark for stock car racing’s biggest show, 161.550 mph set by A.J. Foyt in 1972.

At the time in 1980 Baker's feat ranked as the fastest 500-mile auto race ever run anywhere, including ultra-fast Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Three decades later, his speed remains the record at Daytona.

Baker's rivals had seen it coming.

"The deal," said Richard Petty, destined to win seven Daytona 500s, "is that we're going to be following Buddy for a long, long time all through the race if his car holds together."

The car, an Oldsmobile, was so quick that during race week someone nicknamed it "The Gray Ghost."

Other drivers told NASCAR officials that Baker's Olds, which had a black and silvery-gray paint scheme, was so speedy that it was blending into the asphalt as Buddy overtook them. Cup director Dick Beaty consequently took the unprecedented step of ordering Day-Glo pink strips taped to the car's grille.

Buddy tried to play it cool about his chances, but the great prospect finally overcame him.

"I'm flying," he conceded 24 hours before the 500's green flag.

Then he echoed Petty. Said Buddy: "I'm running laps at 197 (mph). I'm going to win if nothing goes wrong."

Starting from the pole, which he'd won at 194.009 mph, Buddy led 30 of the first 33 laps on the 2.5-mile track in the car owned by Harry Ranier and engineered by Waddell Wilson. Baker then eased off a bit and watched Petty, Neil Bonnett, Bobby Allison, Cale Yarborough and Dale Earnhardt battle at the front.

Baker reasserted the power of crew chief Wilson's engine on Lap 88 and stayed ahead through Lap 180, when he pitted.

But it wasn't a runaway.

Just before the final series of pit stops began, Baker was in a tight aerodynamic draft with Allison, Bonnett and Earnhardt.

As the crew awaited on pit road, Wilson ordered a fuel-only stop.

"How much do you value this gas can?" crewman Buck Brigance excitedly asked Wilson. Brigance, a former motorcycle racing champion, was the gas man on the team.

"Why?" Waddell asked him.

"If you'll let us jab a hole in the bottom of it after I lift it up, the gas will flow into the car faster."

"Do whatever it takes, but get every drop of gas into the tank," said Wilson. "We'll need it to finish."

As Brigance inserted the nozzle of the 11-gallon gas can into the car, another crewman punched a hole in the bottom with a putty knife.

The fuel went in far more rapidly than usual.

"Knowing how impetuous Buddy is, I had reached in around his window netting and grabbed him by the neck of his uniform," recalls Wilson. "I wasn't going to let go until Buck signaled he had finished the fueling.

"I was very concerned Buddy would take off too early.

"The very instant Buck finished, Buddy almost simultaneously dropped the clutch. Buck didn't quite have the nozzle all the way out of the car, so Buddy pulled Buck into me. Buck and I both went sprawling down pit road."

The tumble was worth it.

As the front-runners got back up to full speed on Lap 182 following the pit stops, Baker held a six-second lead over Bonnett.

Buddy appeared home-free.

However, he had been in great position to win the Daytona 500 several times before, only to be cruelly denied.

In 1971 bad strategy in a late pit stop cost him. He led 157 laps in '73, but experienced engine failure six laps from the finish. He had led by a half lap in '75 when his car quit running without warning.

In '78 he was the leader with five laps left and his engine broke again. In '79 he dominated the preliminary events during Speed Weeks, but on the 500's very first lap his engine started missing and he lasted only 38 laps, finishing 40th in a 41-car field.

"All this was rushing through my mind at the end of the 1980 race," recalls Buddy. "I couldn't help but wonder if something bad might happen to me again."

So Buddy stayed on the throttle, padding his lead to 13 seconds.

With such a comfortable advantage, Wilson implored his driver by radio to slow down and conserve fuel.

Baker refused to back off.

"I can't hear you," Buddy told Wilson in a sing-songy voice.

In the pits Wilson was furious.

The radio communication between crew chief and driver became heated.

What was said?

"It sounded like a busy Saturday night in Junior Wong's kitchen!” Baker revealed later.

Who?

Wong was a fishing pal of Buddy's and mine. Junior ran the Ho-Toy, a small, popular Chinese restaurant in Charlotte. The place usually was packed on weekends, and the conversation in the kitchen was almost unintelligible.

Turns out the Baker-Wilson argument was academic.

A rival's blown engine forced the last three laps to be run under caution, assuring that Buddy would have enough fuel to finish. Baker took the checkered flag followed by Allison, Bonnett and Earnhardt.

It appeared that Earnhardt's Olds was strong enough to make a run at Baker. However, Dale's crew left a lug nut off during the last pit stop and he lost a lap whenhe was forced back onto pit road.

Buddy, the son of NASCAR pioneer Buck Baker, watched as his own sons, Bryan and Brandon, bawled in Victory Lane as emotions overflowed.

"The Daytona 500 is a measure of a driver's career," said Buddy. "Because I had such awful disappointments before, winning lifted the world off my shoulders.

"Winning this race is something you're always remembered for."

Wilson recalls an amusing exchange he had with Ranier in Victory Lane.

"Harry, naturally, was excited about winning not only the race, but a record purse.

"Harry said, 'We won $102,000!'

"I said, 'We won $92,000. I paid a fabricator $10,000 to put the body (sheet metal) on the car just right. He had to work a lot of overtime.'

"That price was unheard of at the time. I figured I'd be fired on the spot. But Harry was so tickled he just shrugged it off."

Ranier passed away a few years ago.

Wilson maintains a tie to the sport as an adviser to a transmission manufacturer.

Buddy retired from the cockpit in 1993 and subsequently joined his father in several motorsports halls of fame.

Buddy has worked as an analyst on telecasts of races and as a consultant to various teams.

He presently hosts a call-in show on Sirius radio on Mondays and Tuesdays from 7-10 p.m. And Monday (Jan. 25) is his 69th birthday.

Give him a ring and ask about the Daytona 500 of 30 years ago and his ride in "The Gray Ghost."

You'll hear a great tale.