By Matt McLaughlin
Post 87
Editor's note:This article is part of a special reprise of Matt McLaughlin's "50 Yearsof NASCAR Racing", written and published in 1998 in commemoration ofNASCAR's 50th Anniversary celebration that year. Matt has kindly granted mepermission to run the entire series. Please, sit back and enjoy as you take ajourney back through the pages of history and perhaps relive a memory or two. Many thanks to Matt for his generosity in sharing. God blessyou, my friend.
Historians may point out the fall ofRichmond actually took place on May 10th 1864, but on the stock car racingschedule the night race at Richmond in the Fall falls in early September,kicking off the last third of the season, the home stretch to the championship.While all the teams started the year with great optimism in Daytona inFebruary, by the time the Winston Cup teams visit Richmond in the Fall, aselect few teams have typically surged to the front to contend for the title,while the rest are still scrambling to try to get a seat at the head table inNew York, to avenge earlier disappointments, or even beginning to plan the nextseason.
A disastrous September Sunday afternoon in Richmond almostcost NASCAR one of its heroes. Bobby Allison had had a rough season, as hestruggled to find a full time ride to contend for the championship. He hadalready parted ways with the Ford backed team of Bud Moore's Mercurys and theChrysler backed team of Cotton Owens, and was struggling along in a badlyunder-powered Chevy he co-owned with JD Bracken. As legend has it, that wasAllison's only race car and it was bought from an insurance company as a totalloss, flood damaged vehicle, turned into a race car in the garage on Allison'sproperty and equipped with an engine out of a totaled Camaro. In truth, 1967was a tough year to be anybody but Richard Petty, who was flat out dominatingthe Grand National scene in a season that saw him rack up 27 victories in hisswift blue Hemi Plymouth, one of a full stable the King had at his beck andcall. In a case of the rich getting richer(D) Petty dominated that race andtook the checkers for the sixth race in a row, while Bobby caught the fence androlled his Chevy hard down the front straight-away. The car was badly damagedand Bobby admitted he didn't know if he wanted to continue racing, much lesswhether he could. Bobby Allison, being the man he was, went ahead and patchedup that badly trashed race car and was back at the next race five days later.Petty won again, but Allison finished second, in a car that looked like itbelonged in the scrap heap. Ironically, it was Petty's domination of the seriesthat gave Allison a big break later that year. Ford was determined to regainwinning form, and one of the teams sent out to take on the King was headed bythe recently retired Fred Lorenzen, who tapped Bobby to drive the car. The pairteamed up to win the last two races of the1967 season.
What a difference a couple years can make. By the time theGrand National circuit returned to Richmond on the fall of 1969, Bobby Allisonwas driving a powerful Mario Rossi owned Hemi, with support from Chrysler.Richard was struggling through a tough season with the unfamiliar Fords he wasrunning that year. Once again bad luck seemed poised to strike the star crossedAllison. During Saturday happy hour, the Dodge he was driving lost an engineand the team did not have a spare. Quick phone calls were made and a truckdriver drove all night to get the engine to Richmond by 10:00 the morning ofthe race. The team and a few friends quickly installed the engine and rolledthe car out onto the track, moments before the start of the race. Once thegreen dropped, Allison charged through towards the front and on lap 171 heassumed the lead from Richard Petty when the King's car blew a reardifferential, sidelining him for the day. Allison led the rest of the event andtook the checkers three laps ahead of second place Sonny Hutchins, but eventhat seemingly easy romp of the field was not without drama. Allison gotinvolved in not one, but two pit road accidents with Cale Yarborough that day.
Richard Petty was the acknowledged master of Richmond with13 victories during his career there. In fact that race Allison won in the Fallof 1969 was the only Fall event at Richmond Petty didn't win from 1967 to 1974.Along the way he also piled up five wins in the Spring at Richmond during thesame period, for good measure. Allison was no slouch at Richmond either,accumulating six wins. Petty entered the 1971 race at Richmond poised to clinchhis third championship, but what was on Richard's mind that day was winning therace, not resting on his laurels. "I've never entered a race in my lifethat I didn't try to win." mused the King." Winning this race is moreimportant than winning the title." Not only did he claim his championship,but Richard showed why he deserved to be champion, by winning that race by overa lap. Some recent champions of this era would do well to note how a truechampion takes a title. Second place that day went to who else... BobbyAllison. Ironically, Richard entered the Fall race at Richmond in 1975, onceagain only needing to start the race to take the championship. That day hefinished dead last after blowing an engine on lap 34.
In 1972 Richard and Bobby flat out dominated the Winston Cupseries. Allison scored 10 wins that year and 27 top-tens in 31 races, whilePetty won eight races and scored 28 top-tens. The pair finished one-two onthirteen different occasions, often laps ahead of the rest of the field. Whenyou combine two drivers of such great talent, possessed with such a fierydetermination to win, a tight points battle, and equal cars, there's going tobe fireworks occasionally, and there was a Fourth of July's worth at Richmondthat fall. As per usual that year the two drivers dominated the event, swappingthe lead back and forth between themselves. Richard got into Bobby's car whilemuscling past on the 392nd lap, and in the next corner Allison hit Petty'sDodge to let him know he wasn't too happy about it. Petty went out of controland headed for the fence. Buddy Baker hit the 43 car and it hit the guard railand actually went up on top of the steel in a hail of sparks. Richard's carstruck an upright on the fence and was knocked back onto the track. Despiteriding the guard rail, he never even lost the lead of the race. Petty went onto take the victory despite driving the final lap on a flat tire. Allisonfinished second.
There was a frightening wreck on the fourth lap of the Fall1973 race at Richmond. A rookie, Baxter Price, lost control and third placeDarrell Waltrip nailed him a solid shot in the rear of his car. In all, 14 carspiled into the wreck. Rescue crews ran out to check on the drivers and helpthem out of their cars, and at that point the fuel from Baxter's car, which hadspilled all over the track, ignited. While fortunately none of the trackpersonnel were badly injured, Baxter did receive second degree burns to hisface and hands. The race had to be halted for over an hour while the mess wascleaned up. Later in the race it began raining and because of the long delayearlier, NASCAR decided to leave the cars on the track for a full 86 laps,running under yellow in the rain. The track was still visibly wet and slickwhen racing resumed, but Richard Petty mastered the tricky surface and wentonto to take the win by over two laps, whistling "Oh, I've seen fire andI've seen rain…". Bobby Allison had to settle for third, while CaleYarborough, who was starting to crash the two man private party Petty andAllison had made out of stock car racing, got second place.
There was another display of hot temper at Richmond in thefall of 1978 that didn't stop even after the checkered flag dropped. WhilePetty and Allison both led briefly, the day seemed to belong to Neil Bonnettthat afternoon and he dominated the race. Apparently someone forgot to tellDarrell Waltrip that it was Neil's day, because he fought his way up to secondplace and began trying to find a way to pass him. With eight laps left, havingfound no opportunity to make a clean pass, Waltrip simply ran into Bonnett'srear bumper and pushed him out of the way, sending Bonnett into the wall. BobbyAllison took advantage of the move by ducking underneath the battling pair andtaking the lead, but DW soon ran him down and made the pass for the lead to theloud booing of the crowd. Waltrip took the win and Allison came home second,while Neil managed to recover for third. To show his irritation at Waltrip,Bonnett charged into the pits at a good clip and drove into the side of DW'sChevy while the crowd roared its approval. After the race, the track officialshad to assign a police escort to Darrell, who was faced with a hail of objectsthrown from the stands. An un-contrite Waltrip shrugged it off and said he wonraces anyway he could, adding, "I don't like being booed but I'm not goingto let it bother me and it won't change the way I drive." Waltrip wouldgive ample evidence of that statement the next couple seasons.
What a difference even a single year can make. Ask RustyWallace, who was involved in tight points battles when the circuit hit Richmondfor the second time in both the 1988 and 1989 seasons. In 1988, Rusty wasscrapping it out with Bill Elliott to be Winston Cup champion. Common wisdomwas that as the season shifted to the short tracks, Wallace would have theadvantage over Elliott, who was stronger at the big tracks, and could make upthe ground he needed. That's not how it worked out in 1988. After a less thanstellar qualifying effort started Rusty towards the back of the field, he wasinvolved in an incident after a first lap caution for a wreck involving RichardPetty and Lake Speed. As the cars slowed to take the yellow, Geoff Bodine ranfull steam into the back of Wallace crippling Rusty's car and relegating him toa miserable 35th place finish in a field of 36 cars. Bobby Allison's son Daveytook the win that day, beating Dale Earnhardt to the stripe in the first racestaged on the newly reconfigured three quarter mile track. Elliott managed tocome home seventh and add a nice cushion to his points lead. Rusty was lividafterwards and accused Bodine of destroying his chances to be champion. Whenthe Cup cars returned to that same race in 1989 Rusty was involved in a tightpoints battle with Dale Earnhardt for the title. The weather was unseasonablyhot that year, with temperatures in the nineties and high humidity to boot.Both Earnhardt and Wallace admitted after the race they were badly fatigued andcould not have driven much further. But despite the ill effects of heat,Wallace managed to steer around numerous wrecks that caused a record 14 cautionflags to fly and stretch his fuel mileage far enough to take the victory.Earnhardt came home second so Wallace, who got the five points for leading themost laps, only gained ten points on his rival. In the end though, Wallace onlyedged Earnhardt out by 12 points, so that victory at Richmond loomed large,particularly since it was Rusty's last win of the year, and Earnhardt caughtfire the last part of that season. While the short track races may not be asglamorous as the superspeedways in the eyes of many fans, they pay the sameamount of points and in Winston Cup every race helps decide the championship.
The fall of 1991 marked the first race at Richmond run underthe lights on a Saturday night, which must have made Sportsman veteran andstand out Harry Gant feel right at home. That race had all the excitement of a localtrack Saturday night special as well. Davey Allison overcame a mid-race penaltyfor speeding on pit road, and charged back into the lead. A caution flag slowedthe action and with 75 laps left to run it came down to a two car duel betweenGant and Allison. The duo treated the fans to a legendary battle, running sideby side, inches apart, lap after lap until finally with 25 laps to go, Gantused an old short track trick and used the lapped car of Terry Labonte as apick to block Allison and force him to back off. At that point Gant took thelead and was never headed, despite Davey's best efforts to reel him in. Afterthe race both drivers complimented the other for running a tight but cleanrace. For the 51-year old Gant it was his second win in a row and the streakwould grow to four consecutive races, earning Harry the nickname "Mr.September."
Those of you who recall the highly questionable (to be kind)black flag that ruined Rusty Wallace's chances of winning the rain delayed Fallrace at Martinsville in 1997, may not know that it was actually the second timeNASCAR gave Rusty a black flag penalty for jumping the restart while he was inthe lead. The same thing happened to Wallace at the Fall race in Richmond in1993. Rusty dominated the first 95 laps of the race, but on a restart after thecaution, NASCAR officials decided he had jumped the gun. Rusty became soincensed he drove with a fire in his belly, charging through the pack like therest of the drivers were in pedal cars. On lap 267 Rusty muscled his way pastMark Martin to take the lead, and either the other drivers didn't have thehorsepower to catch him, or they knew better than to try. Wallace led BillElliott to the stripe by about six car lengths. As far as I know, NASCAR didnot award him his $49,415 first prize money in pennies.
At present, Matt isnot taking email correspondence at Race Fans Forever. If you have comments,please leave them below and he will read them at his leisure.
