Editor’s Note: NASCAR is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2023. Cale Yarborough ended the 1977 NASCAR Winston Cup season in the same place as 1976: at the top of the points. Yarborough began his quest for his second consecutive Winston Cup championship at Riverside (Calif.) Int’l Raceway and led 102 of the 199 laps but finished second to David Pearson. Meanwhile, the sponsor of the initial race of the season and the title sponsor for the Winston Cup division, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., was beginning its seventh year of NASCAR sponsorship. NASCAR’s most prestigious race, the Daytona 500, fell to Winston Cup’s stocky legend. Yarborough outlasted Benny Parsons to win the 500 for the second time. Yarborough completed all 30 events, won nine and racked up 25 top-five finishes and 27 top-10s on his way to a record 5,000 points and his second consecutive Winston Cup title. Cook had now finished first or second in the modified points every year since 1969.

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