Darrell Waltrip made the largest withdrawal in the 36-year history of Martinsville Speedway and, appropriately, it came in the 1983 Virginia National Bank 500.

The driver of Junior Johnson's Pepsi Chevrolet beat Harry Gant and the Skoal Bandit Buick to the finish line by eight-tenths of a second to win racing's richest "short track" event.

Waltrip's payday in the $218,310 Winston Cup Grand National battle was worth a speedway record of $35,225, including the $3,000 Gillette Atra lap leader award for leading the most laps, 297 of the 500 around the .525-mile track.

He scored his second straight victory and the sixth of his career at Martinsville with a fake that would have done credit to a pro football quarterback. Bobby Allison, in the Miller High Life Buick, was third, followed by Joe Ruttman in the Levi Garrett Buick and Busch pole position winner Ricky Rudd, who qualified the Piedmont Airlines Chevrolet with a VNB 500 record speed of 90.005 miles per hour. All finished in the same lap with the winner.

Waltrip pulled off his fake in the late going after the engine in Neil Bonnett's National Engineering Chevrolet let go on the 484th lap. He swung wide to miss the oil and Allison ducked underneath to take the lead. Then, with both cars apparently heading for a pit stop, Waltrip suddenly swerved back on the track to regain the lead.

He stayed in front the rest of the way in a wild finish that had the crowd on its feet.

"I had a sizeable lead and all of a sudden I was behind Bobby because of the oil on the track," Waltrip said. "I was talking to Junior on the radio all the way down the backstretch and through turns three and four and I was right in behind Bobby.

"I started to swing down pit road and Junior hollered 'stay out' just as I was getting ready to come in. But I think Bobby was set to go in no matter what we did and I really didn't think we would. If the car hadn't been running so good, we would have considered a pit stop. But all those other guys needed the new tires just to be able to run with us. Everything about the way we were running said 'stay out'."

Waltrip took three hours, 57 minutes and 14 seconds to go the 262.5 miles at the slow average speed of 66.460 miles per hour as ten caution flags slowed the race for a record 103 laps. The event, which saw Saturday's activities washed out by rain, was stopped twice by showers, once for 23 minutes and three seconds and the other time for 13 minutes and 33 seconds.

Rudd led 100 laps in the race, Tim Richmond 58, Allison 32, Geoff Bodine 11 in the Gatorade Pontiac, Richard Petty one in the STP Pontiac, and Gant, the defending VNB 500 champion, one as the lead changed hands 13 times among seven drivers.

Gant won $20,200 for second while Allison, still seeking his first Martinsville Winston Cup victory, picked up $15,780. Waltrip's payday beat the previous record of $26,850 he had won here in the spring of 1980 and the payoff of $33,225 he received for capturing the 1982 Old Dominion 500, which starting in 1983 will be sponsored by Goody's Manufacturing Corporation and will be renamed the Goody's 500.

"I love to win here," Waltrip said. "It pays a pile of money. It is a prestige race and my mom and dad need one of those grandfather clocks, " he added, referring to the unique trophy the speedway awards the winner.

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