A Special Day For Special K

   It was 20 years ago this coming fall that NASCAR rolled its big-time tour, then known as The Winston Cup Series, into Phoenix International Raceway for the first time.
  The teams competing on what's now called The Sprint Cup Series return to the track in the desert of Arizona  this upcoming weekend for the Subway 500, the first of two races they will run on the 1-mile speedway this season.
   Excitement abounded in 1988 as the likes of Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Cale Yarborough, Buddy Baker, Rusty Wallace, Darrell Waltrip, Bill Elliott and Bobby and Davey Allison visited The Valley Of The Sun  to run the Checker 500.
   Such a large crowd was expected to overflow the grandstands that track officials, led by President Buddy Jobe,  even cleared off the side of a rattlesnake-infested hill behind Turns 3 and 4 to accomodate those willing to sit on the rocky terrain and watch.
   Anticipation accelerated when Geoff Bodine won the pole at 123.203 mph, much faster than expected.

    Roads leading to the track west of Phoenix, mostly two-lane at the time, were clogged even early in the morning.
   Despite delays in getting parked, there was a festive mood.  Southwestern fans were delighted finally  to get NASCAR's "first-teamers" to their section of the country.
   Perhaps an hour before the green flag, men began appearing on horseback, lining up abreast atop a high ridge behind the backstretch.  They were tribal members from a nearby Indian Reservation.  Outlined against the sky, they appeared as from a scene in a Western movie, preparing to attack a wagon train.
   I told my buddies, "Now I get a sense of the fear the pioneers in those covered wagsons must have felt."
   The favorites in the 500-kilometer, 312-mile event generally were considered to be Ricky Rudd, Mark Martin and Wallace because of their talent for racing on relatively flat tracks.  The Phoenix layout had banking of only 11 degrees in Turns 1-2 and 9 degrees in Turns 3-4.
   Sure enough, Wallace took off from his second starting position, leading 43 of the first 45 laps.  Then Rudd commanded long stretches, leading  laps 73-123 and  152-237.  Rudd  took the front again on lap 251 and was 18 seconds ahead when his car's engine failed on lap 296.
    Riding in the runnerup spot at the time and there to take advantage was Alan Kulwicki, never a winner on the big-time circuit in 84 previous starts dating to 1985.  That's when Lowe's Motor Speedway president Humpy Wheeler convinced Kulwicki to leave his native Wisconsin and come south to race. 
   Kulwicki sped under the checkered flag 18.6 seconds ahead of runnerup Terry Labonte.
   And then he did something astonishing.
   He pulled a U-turn and ran his Victory Lap counter-clockwise around the track, drawing the loudest cheers of the day from a crowd estimated at 63,000.
   Kulwicki, who admitted having tears in his eyes the last few laps and during his triumphant  wrong-way run, said he had been planning the stunt a long time, just in case he ever won.
   "There'll never be another first Winston Cup win," he said.  "And I wanted to do something memorable other than spewing champagne or standing on top of the car in Victory Lane.  I wanted to give fans something to remember me and my first win by, and I figured this would do it.
   "My family has Polish heritage, and this was my 'Polish Victory Lap.'"
   Others have emulated it since, but seldom with as much emotion.
   Kulwicki's triumph was widely, wildly popular for a number of reasons.  Mainly, he was an "independent," or "privateer," running his own team with a small crew and much-less sponsorship  than his top rivals.  The driver nicknamed "Special K" had turned down lucrative offers from famous, highly-successful team owners to pursue a dream of doing it his way.
    He continued that quest the rest of his career, and it netted Kulwicki the Winston Cup championship in 1992.  He is the last owner-driver to achieve the feat.
   Tragically, Kulwicki got to enjoy his title only a few months.  He was killed along with three companions in the crash of a private plane at Blountville, Tenn., on April 1, 1993 while en route to a race at Bristol.  He was 39 and just reaching his prime as a driver.
   Kulwicki's career ended with 5 victories, 24 poles and a place in various motorsports halls of fame.
   Not everyone, it turns out, was enamored of Kulwicki's inaugural victory at Phoenix two decades ago.  A California journalist wrote the next day, and I'm paraphrasing, "Who we wanted to see in Victory Lane was a Dale Earnhardt, a Bill Elliott or someone of that stature.  Instead, we got Alan Kulwicki."
   Little did the guy know he was belittling a driver destined to become a NASCAR legend.