1978 FIA Cup Championship
In 1978, Cale followed up with yet another DOMINATING performance enroute to his then record third straight Winston Cup, by 474 points over Bobby Allison. He had a series best 10 victories (DW was second with 6), and scored 23 top 5's and 24 top 10's. He also led a Shrub-like 3587 laps that year. If memory serves (Lee Roy, please help me with this) I believe Tim Brewer was his crew chief (yep, the same Tim Brewer that we see on DSPN every week in the Tech Center.
Let's check to see how bad the tail whippin was in the FIA points standings:
Code:
001 Cale Yarborough........444
002 Darrell Waltrip........358
003 Bobby Allison..........315
004 Benny Parsons..........290
005 Dave Marcis............231
006 David Pearson..........208
007 Lennie Pond............201
008 Richard Petty..........195
009 Dick Brooks............105
010 Neil Bonnett...........104
____________________________
011 Donnie Allison.........100
012 Buddy Baker............079
013 Richard Childress......052
014 JD McDuffie............031
015 Buddy Arrington........025
46 drivers scored at least 1 point this year. Cale again had no issues, and won by 86 over DW, who leap frogged a more consistent Bobby Allison for 2nd.
Cale averaged "only"14.8 ppr this year, and the avg ppr for the group 6.6, down slightly from 1977. The group averaged starting 27.7 out of the 30 races, the best to that date. Their avg starting spot was 10.0, and avg finish was 13.5. Reliability continues its upward trend, with the avg RAF being 19.9, (or 71.63 %) and the avg DNF for the group was again 7.9. Avg Lead lap finishes dropped to 4.9 of 30 or 17.79% the last time it would be below 20%. Again the group scored all 30 of the race wins, with 29 of those in the top 10 drivers (Donnie Allison scored the win in the fall race at Atlanta). The p15 driver, Buddy Arrington scored a record low for that position with 25 points.
The Bud Pole award goes to Cale Yarborough with 8 poles.
:beer: :beer: Congrats to Cale Yarborough, the 1978 Winston Cup and FIA Cup Champion!
