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Last week NASCAR announced its list of drivers who are eligible to compete in this year’s Sprint Unlimited, a special event that is a preliminary to the Daytona 500.

The Unlimited is scheduled Feb. 13, the 500 that annually opens the Cup Series season is set for Feb. 21.

The release of the aforementioned list—a whopping 25 drivers, or more than half of what would comprise a regular-season field—brought the first of these special shows in 1979 flashing into mind.

And what a difference between now and then!

Look back with me to 37 years ago:

Apprehension hung over Daytona International Speedway as thick as the morning fog emanating from the infield’s Lake Lloyd on Feb. 11, 1979.

An inaugural special race for the previous season's Cup Series pole winners was scheduled that day, and skeptics were predicting big trouble among the nine starters. (Just nine!).

Their contention was that matching highly competitive drivers in a 20-lap dash, billed as “The Busch Clash,” for a winner’s prize of $50,000 held the potential of putting some of them in the hospital.

“As gung-ho as those guys are, they will run all over each other for that kind of money,” I recall one fellow motorsports writer maintaining as time for the green flag drew near at the ultrafast 2.5-mile track. “It’s not going to be pretty!”

Indeed, $50,000 was worth a lot more 37 years ago than it is now. In contrast, Richard Petty earned just $79,000 for running 10 times as far in winning the Daytona 500 a week later.

My feeling was that while the Clash entrants were indeed competitive in the extreme, they also were very, very talented and smart enough to avoid a “Big One,” or multi-car crash.

Creation of the race can be traced to a colorful character who worked in marketing for Anheuser-Busch, the late Marty Roberts. He saw it as a means of promoting the Busch brew. NASCAR and Daytona International Speedway officials liked the idea as a means of spicing up Speedweeks.

And so it was that Benny Parsons, Darrell Waltrip, Buddy Baker, Bobby Allison, J.D. McDuffie, Lennie Pond, Cale Yarborough, David Pearson and Neil Bonnett lined up in that order almost four decades ago.

An “independent” driver with little backing, McDuffie, later to lose his life in a crash at Watkins Glen, was stunningly in the field after winning his only pole in 624 starts in 1978 qualifying at Dover, Del. Contrary to predictions of the race producing chaos, no one came close to crashing.

The reason: Baker’s Olds, fielded by the late Harry Ranier and engineered by crew chief Waddell Wilson, simply was far faster than any other car. Big Buddy whipped into the lead on the first lap and stayed there.

His rivals were forced to line up single file to form an aerodynamic draft in the hope of catching Baker. It didn’t work, and there wasn’t a single caution lap.

“We knew we had a fast car and should win the race,” Wilson said later. “We weren’t cocky, but I admit to a lot of confidence. I held a view opposite what a lot of people were saying in guessing that the Clash was going to get some guys hurt. The drivers back then, especially the boys that were in that field, raced each other fair and square.”

For years afterward, mention of being the inaugural winner brought a beaming smile to the face of Buddy Baker, who passed away last September at age 74 of cancer.

“Ohhh man! That was a sweet experience,” said Buddy, who averaged a sizzling 194.384 mph in covering the 50-mile dash in just 15 minutes, 26 seconds. “Not to take anything away from the rest of the guys, but I actually held back a bit to make the race somewhat exciting.

“I felt that if it was a runaway, they might not ever have another one.”

Baker easily passed Waltrip for the lead with five laps to go and took the checkered flag a car length ahead. Although the finish appeared close, the general assessment was that the race was anti-climatic.

“I knew it was all over when I went past Buddy that time (on the 15th lap) and he came right back around me,” said Waltrip. “Man, he was strong!”

Baker always treasured the recollection.

“It really was a case of me having only one thing to do,” he says. “And that was to keep it between the walls.”