Subscribe to this blog's feed« The Ballad Of Willy T. Ribbs | Main | The Snake-Bit 600 »
One Hot Night
Over the course of many years officials at Charlotte Motor Speedway had a reputation of over-hyping their NASCAR events.
And so it seemed with the 1992 running of The Winston, an all-star race featuring the Winston Cup Series' top drivers and former champions.
Track president/general manager Humpy Wheeler and his associates dubbed it "One Hot Night."
Turns out they underplayed the show, the first-ever stock car race under lights at a speedway of Charlotte's size, 1.5-miles.
It was hotter than hot at the facility now known as Lowe's Motor Speedway, where the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race is scheduled again Saturday night.
Kyle Petty and Davey Allison raced side-by-side, scrubbing sheet metal and spewing sparks, for the last 200 feet to the checkered flag. Allison got there first by a foot or two, then lost control, spun and slammed very hard, driver's-side first, into the wall.
Petty and Allison were battling for the victory because Dale Earnhardt, unbelievably, had spun after slight contact with Petty, while leading in Turn 4.
There was a mix of gasps and thunderous cheers from a crowd estimated at 133,500 at the stunning, sensational outcome. Then, all fell quiet when it appeared that Allison, who in 1991 had swept The Winston and the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte the following week, might be gravely injured.
Allison's team, led by owner Robert Yates and crew chief Larry McReynolds, rushed down pit road and across the track to their driver's aid. Emergency personnel arrived almost simultaneously.
Allison, knocked woozy, had to be cut from the car, a very treasured Yates Thunderbird nicknamed 007 that in five races had now finished first, first, first, second and first. Davey was rushed to the infield infirmary in an ambulance. Yates and McReynolds rejoined him there.
"Well, boys, what happened?" Allison asked.
"We won," replied Yates.
Allison was unaware of his triumph until then.
Doctors ordered Davey airlifted to Carolinas Medical Center by helicopter. It was determined he had suffered a concussion, bruised lung and bruised legs in the violent crash. He was held overnight, then told to rest and limit his activities for a couple days.
Petty came to the press box for a post-race interview in Allison's absence.
"We hit before we got to the flagstand and then rubbed again just after crossing the line," said Kyle. "It was just racing and unintentional. We were both out of control and leaning on each other. He came across and clipped my left front and that got him sideways.
"I hate I"m up here and Davey isn't. I don't like to be involved in wrecks."
Some members of the sports staff at my "Alma Mater," The Charlotte Observer, were covering a race for the first time, stationed along pit road and in the garage area. They were astonished by the wild finish.
When Earnhardt pulled into the garage and started striding toward Petty, my fellow writers thought they were going to see a world class fight.
Instead, the two drivers embraced as Earnhardt grinned and shook his head.
"Kyle was just trying to take what was his," said Earnhardt, who wound up 14th. "He took more room than I wanted to give him. This is The Winston, and he was going for it. It was just good, hard racing."
Petty had this description of the incident with Earnhardt in entering Turn 4:
"Dale and I had a bad angle going into that turn, and I sensed one of us wasn't going to make it through that end of the speedway. When he cut his car to get back on a good line, he lost it. As Dale's car got away from him, I had to ease up a little. Davey was able to hold his line and my only hope was to try and block him."
For three days Allison, extremely sore, left the hotel where he was staying only to confer with Yates and McReynolds about choosing a possible backup/relief driver and the choice of another car.
Allison, showing the same toughness for which his father, Bobby, is famous, said he intended to drive all the way in the Coke 600 the following Sunday if at all possible. He made good on that vow, but couldn't cash in on the Winston Million Bonus going to a driver winning three of the series' Big Four events in the same season. He previously had taken the Daytona and Winston 500s.
Earnhardt won the 600 followed by Ernie Irvan, Petty and Davey. Allison later placed fifth in the Southern 500 at Darlington, missing out on the $1 million prize.
For his victory in The Winston Allison earned a purse of $300,000.
However, the seemingly unbeatable Ford with the monicker 007 was lost. Legend has it that Yates was so upset that Allison had been injured in the car that he had it crushed so that no part of it ever would show up at a memorabilia sale.
In July of 1993 Davey tragically lost his life in the crash of a helicopter he was attempting to land at Talladega Superspeedway, leaving fans to ponder what a career that promised to be among the greatest in NASCAR would have produced.
May 14, 2008 in Racing | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451bce769e200e55226203f8833
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference One Hot Night:
Comments
Thanks for the memories! Even tho there is bad in with the good. I have to admit I didn't pull for Davey, because I was pulling for Bill Elliott and Alan Kulwicki and they were all 'entwined'. Such a tragic year, unbelievable, to me at the time. First Alan, then Davey. When Alan was killed, Davey said he was glad Alan won the championship because he would never have another chance. What Davey didn't know, was, neither would he. The saddest year in NASCAR to me and I have seen a lot in 28 years.
Posted by: 9fanatic | May 14, 2008 9:16:12 PM
A lot of memories there. I have the race on tape. Those were the days when you could get the feed on the big dish without commercials. Davey was my favorite driver. My prized possession is the photo taken by my husband of Davey and me at Sears Point three weeks before he died in the helicopter crash. Davey is signing the photo my husband took the previous year of him in his car coming through the s's.
That day Davey helped a young man from the Winston West series who had a heart attack in the pits. The man never made it, but Davey was the type of person who would try to help someone in trouble.
I thought it was admirable that he said the things he said about Alan Kulwicki. The previous year the Allisons went through so much sorrow with the loss of POPS and Clifford it was hard to believe that they would have to go through even more.
Posted by: Sammy | May 14, 2008 10:48:49 PM
I hate to say it but those were truly the "good ole day." And I say that because of the people involved. What would it have been if we had a Kulwicki and Allison alive to fight it out with Dale Sr.? What would it have been and how good we would have had it as fans had Tim Richmond been in the mix? All would have been in their prime from '93-'98 and those indeed would have been great years to be a fan of Cup racing. Kulwicki might of had a reputation of taking care of his equipment better but those boys, along with Ernie Irvan and a few others would have won at all costs, just like The Winston of 1992. As always Tom a true pleasure reading your pieces.
Posted by: ED | May 15, 2008 9:23:12 AM
While 1992 was a memorable finish, the only Winston that has ever lived up to the hype was 1994, because for almost the only time in the event's history we had a real fight for the win, between Sterling Marlin, Schrader, Geoff Bodine, and Darrell Waltrip.
To ED, I doubt Kulwicki and Allison would have mattered that much after 1992 - Kulwicki would have been crushed as an owner-driver and Allison slumped so badly in 1993 before he died that he looked all but finished with Yates.
Posted by: Mike Daly | May 16, 2008 11:07:59 AM
Mike:
Davey Allison ran 16 races in 1993, with 8 top-ten's (50% ain't bad). He had 6 top-fives. Oh, and one victory. He was fifth in the points at his death. Also, Allison was running at the finish of 15 out of 16 races.
A slump? If so, do explain. And, please define success in the process.
Based upon your definitive statement, it would seem you don't imagine a scenario in which a bigger, well-funded team would have been interested in Kulwicki, should be have had to close his team's doors one day.
Well, Ford was pretty proud of Kulwicki... perhaps they would have played a role in keeping him in something good.
Regardless, drivers have been known to get offers from bigger, well-funded teams and they have been known to accept them... and be successful in the process.
Of course, we'll just never know.
As to The Winston... well, I've covered them (sitting behind Tom Higgins) or attended them since 1985... the first one was exciting (largely because it was the first one), but 1993 was pretty cool... with a .16 margin of victory following restarts and false starts and a lot of ticked off fans.
Others have been exciting, too, but for brevity's sake, the margins of victory of less than one second in some of the earlier runnings alone say something...
1985: .31 seconds
1987: .74 seconds
1988: .97 seconds
1989: .23 seconds
1990: .34 seconds
1992: four feet
1993: .16 seconds
1994: .26 seconds
1998: .42 seconds
Perhaps you have attended each "Winston" since 1985 and observed something different from what I have seen from the pressbox, suites, and platforms atop the grandstands. But, when factoring crowd reactions, seeing margins of victory, etc... it seems a lot of people thought a number of races lived up to the hype.
Posted by: David | May 19, 2008 8:16:43 AM
David, Allison wasn't attacking the tracks or traffic with close to the intensity he'd used in 1992, and periodically he spouted off with uncharacteristic sanctimony - Jake Elder has said that Davey seemed troubled in 1993, and just watching the way he raced before he died that year I could sense there was something wrong.
Margin of victory means nothing - where were the lead changes in those races? Only 1994 had any real battle for the lead. And crowd reactions? About the only cheering I ever hear anymore is when Junior leads; the crowd reaction never sounded all that hot in most previous years.
The race has never lived up to the hype. If they want it to live up to the hype, move it to Talladega.
Posted by: Mike Daly | May 19, 2008 1:50:32 PM
Mike:
You didn't explain your initial statements about the two probably not mattering after '93... can you go into further detail?
Nonetheless, as to Allison's season... I point again to the 16-race statistics: 8 top-tens, 6 top-fives, 1 win, 276 laps led, 9 races led, 15 RAF's, and 5th in points.
(No, we shouldn't ever solely rely on the statistics, but they have always been a major portion of what determines a good or bad season in every sport.)
Admittedly, his two Daytona finishes were poor, plus Charlotte and Michigan... so he did encounter some mechanical and handling issues. The other 12 races demonstrated that his determination was stronger than his frustration.
About Jake Elder... are you sure he said that?
After his falling out and firing in '91, I can't remember him being close enough to have made a solid judgement about Davey's mindset in '93. But, I will look back at some old files, as well as some back issues of Winston Cup Scene to double-check my memory.
I don't recall anything like that from his team, especially his crew chief, Larry McReynolds.
I do know that McReynolds and Yates insisted they were on track to win multiple championships... and Yates was reportedly heavily mortgaged to invest in Allison and building up the team for a long, successful run together. Even in 2003, Yates said he thought Davey would still have been driving for him.
Since 1949, the margin of victory for every race has been recorded and reported. In some sense, it's like a score. If it's the Super Bowl, people aren't satisfied by only knowing who won, they also want to know by how much.
Same with a race. It's far more interesting (not to mention exciting) to know that Earnhardt beat Martin to the line in '93 by .16 seconds than by three seconds or one lap... or not to know at all.
It is one of the factors in saying "this was a close race" or "this was not a close race".
Lead changes are important, but like statistics, they can't be the determining factor for excitement. (Yes, several Winstons were sleepers and were short on lead changes and yes, some point and non-point races without some kind of drama have been boring.)
Races in which run-away leaders crash or blow are exciting and races in which a dominant car is dogged by someone only a tick off and awaiting the leader's slip can be exciting, too; as can races in which someone gets their car right on a final pit stop and makes a late charge. And so are races in which leader after leader encounters trouble and it becomes a survival match. (This was especially true in the '70's, '80's, and '90's.)
When you refer to how the Winston/All-Star crowd sounds to you, do you mean in person or on television?
I gotta tell you, from up top, that Winston/All-Star crowd sounds pretty loud in person.
I do see and hear a crowd difference as I visit different tracks. I haven't been to Sears Point, Phoenix, Kansas, and Watkins Glen, so I can't judge those four crowds, but on a year-after-year basis (except for Bristol), I'd put the Winston crowd up against almost any other when it comes to noise.
Hope you enjoy the dialog.
Posted by: David | May 19, 2008 7:32:42 PM
Dave, owner-drivers had no chance of surviving by the end of the 1990s - Alan would have been crushed as an owner-driver; that's why he wouldn't have mattered.
As for Jake Elder's comments about Davey Allison, see Peter Golenbock's book The Last Lap - Elder states that Davey was troubled in 1993, and watching the lack of elan with which Davey drove that year (the stats look good, but watching him compared to the previous two years they didn't tell us the true story), I agree with him. I could see in 1993 he did not attack traffic or the tracks with the same elan of before and I long wondered why.
Margins of victory are meaningless - the 1974 Daytona 500, for instance, was a MOV of 47 seconds - yet the lead changed 60 times (still a Daytona record) among 15 drivers. That made it a far better race than races with close MOVs but little in the way of up-front combat - 2007 was the wildest finish in the event's history but was overall a lousy race with he only battle for the lead coming after Stewart and Kurt Busch crashed out with less than 50 laps to go.
The only time MOV matters is if the lead changes in the final lap - otherwise it ultimately is meaningless - number of lead changes is the true gauge of a race's competitiveness.
I base what I hear from the crowd from both attending races and from television. I've never really noticed anything different from the Winston crowd compared to other crowds.
Thanks, David.
Posted by: Mike Daly | May 22, 2008 11:31:32 AM
Post a comment
Advertisements
