#6 - By the Time I Get to Phoenix...
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01/18/2018 Matt McLaughlin |
(Editor’s Note) In 1997
- 1998, Matt McLaughlin penned a special Anthology of historical pieces in
honor of the 50th Anniversary of NASCAR entitled "50 Years of NASCAR
Racing." Matt has entrusted the entire collection, minus one or two that
were misfiled back then and cannot be salvaged, to my tender, loving care.
As NASCAR turns 70, the
Anthology itself will celebrate a 20th anniversary through 2018, and will run
again here on Race Fans Forever. As before, there is no record of which pieces
came first, so it will appear in the sequence presented earlier. Please, sit
back and enjoy as you take a journey back through the pages of history and
perhaps relive a memory or two.
As always, many thanks
to Matt, and God bless you my friend. ~PattyKay
Phoenix International Raceway is a relative newcomer
to the Winston Cup schedule but it has already produced some memorable events.
Coming as the event prior to the grand finale in Atlanta, the outcome at
Phoenix has aided the title hopes of some, and dashed the plans of others.
NASCAR's top league returned to Phoenix in 1988, after
having not run a race there since the 1960 Grand National event held at the
Arizona Fairgrounds. Alan Kulwicki won his first Winston Cup event that day after
late race mechanical problems felled Ricky Rudd who had dominated the event in
the Quaker State Buick. It was an emotional victory for the 34-year old
Wisconsin native who had arrived in the south with everything he owned inside a
worn out pickup truck in 1985. All along he had insisted on running his own
team, a relative novelty in that era, and the win at Phoenix was his pay back
for several years of frustration seeking that elusive victory. To celebrate, he
did one of his soon to become trademark "Polish Victory laps",
touring the track in the wrong direction. Sadly, the Polish victory lap also
came to be how race winners paid tribute to Kulwicki after he lost his life in
an aircraft accident while reigning Winston Cup Champion. By finishing fourth to
Rusty Wallace's fifth, Bill Elliott managed to carry a comfortable point lead
into the Atlanta finale where he wrapped up that year's championship.
Bill Elliott emerged from nowhere to win the 1989
event at Phoenix, but by that point he was out of the title hunt. Rusty Wallace
had come into the Phoenix event with a huge points lead, but lost a large part
of it after getting tangled up with the lapped car of Stan Barrett, leaving
Rusty 16th in the final rundown. Mark Martin finished third and Dale Earnhardt
sixth to move within striking distance of Wallace for the championship. Racing
in his first Winston Cup race that day was Bobby Hamilton, driving a car
prepared by Rick Hendrick and carrying camera equipment to aid in the shooting
of “Days of Thunder" the worst racing movie ever made. Hamilton actually
led the event at times and was told over the radio to drop back and run in the
pack because they needed some footage of the car running in traffic.
Coincidentally, Earnhardt and Martin came into the
1990 race at Phoenix in a tight battle for the Winston Cup honors. Martin had
once had a comfortable point's lead but was in a bit of a slump and Dale was
whittling away at it. A questionable pit strategy call had Martin duck into the
pits for fresh tires during the last caution flag with 16 laps to go, while
Earnhardt and most of the leaders chose to remain on the track. Mark finished
tenth, while Earnhardt won the race and took the points lead. To add to
Martin's headaches he managed to drive into the back of Ernie Irvan after the
race concluded.
Davey Allison won the Phoenix race in the 1991, but
the day belonged to Dale Earnhardt. By finishing ninth (and he admitted to
running a conservative strategy) Earnhardt all but locked up his fifth Winston
Cup championship. All he needed to do was show up at Atlanta and start the race
and he would be champion. Dale joked, "I'm going deer hunting. As long as
I don't fall out of the tree we should be all right."
But Phoenix had a very different sort of effect on the
outcome of the 1992 points championship. After the Dover race in September that
year, Bill Elliott seemed to have the title all but in the bag. Unfortunately,
at that point his first season with the Junior Johnson team went to pieces, and
nowhere were the freak misfortunes more evident than at Phoenix. Junior Johnson
engines failed about as often as it snows in Phoenix but that day Bill blew an
engine to bite size pieces of junk. Davey Allison took the win and the point
lead, 40 points ahead of Elliott, who actually dropped to third in the
standings ten points behind Alan Kulwicki who brought the Hooters Ford home
fourth.
Sadly, when the Winston Cup regulars returned to
Phoenix in 1993, two of the track's favorite sons, inaugural race winner Alan
Kulwicki and the only two time winner of the event, Davey Allison, were both
gone, the victims of aircraft accidents. That year Dale Earnhardt once again
all but assured himself of a Winston Cup championship by finishing fourth at
Phoenix. His day was not without drama however. Dale sent Kenny Schrader
spinning on the third lap, then got involved in a tangle with Schrader's
teammate and Winston Cup Rookie of the year, Jeff Gordon, putting Gordon hard
into the wall. Meanwhile, up front Mark Martin and Ernie Irvan, driving the #28
car Allison had made famous, treated the fans to an epic duel. Martin won the
race by .17 seconds, the closest finish at Phoenix to date.
More recently, two years ago Phoenix dealt Terry
Labonte a bad hand. Literally. A practice crash left Labonte with several
broken bones in his left hand, and had Terry not been able to drive it is very
likely Jeff Gordon might have won his second straight title. Despite having a
hand so swollen it barely looked human, Terry managed to finish third in that
event to Gordon's fifth and thus took another big step towards his title. Bobby
Hamilton won his first race that day and became the first driver to win for
Richard Petty since the King retired from the driver's seat. I guess no one
told Hamilton to slow down and fade back into traffic for filming purposes that
day.
One off track incident bears repeating as well. A
viewer of TBS sent a letter to the network asking if the hillside seating area
offered a decent view of the track. In a comment that probably caused then
owner Buddy Jobe fits, Buddy Baker commented on the
air, "As long as you watch out for the rattle snakes." Rattlesnakes
are actually rather shy creatures that avoid humans when they can, and they are
not a problem on the hill. It is true however, in the week leading up to the
event, workers have to be dispatched to clear the garage area of rattlesnakes
who find the dark quiet garage areas between races a perfect habitat. Next to
being a body man in Mike Skinner's garage that must be the worst job in racing.
At the Phoenix event that year a fan on the hillside held up one of those
banners that plays on the networks call letters. It read:
T ell
B uddy there's no
S nakes.
Beats "I installed my own faucet this
weekend", anyway.
*Matt can no longer
field comments or email at Race Fans Forever. If you have comments or
questions, please leave them below and I’ll do my best to supply answers.
~PattyKay Lilley, Senior Editor.