#64 - Triumph, Tragedy and the Tunnel Turn
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06/14/2017 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
Located in Pennsylvania's picturesque Pocono Mountains,
Pocono International Raceway offers outstanding vistas in addition to being the
Daytona of the North. The area is abundant with wildlife, but none quite so
wild as the party animals who congregate around the infamous mud pit near turn
one twice each summer. With only a little over a month between the two races,
the hardiest of that crew barely have time to sober up before the next event.
In addition to a good time though, the track has served up its share of
exciting and heartwarming moments, as well as some terrible tragedies,
especially in the area of the notorious tunnel turn, every racer's nightmare. A
sign should be hung at the end of the long backstretch going into that corner
that warns, "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here", but for some
drivers that corner was no laughing matter.
Originally proposed in the early '60s, Pocono did not
open until 1971, and that was an Indy car race. NASCAR's Winston Cup tour
didn't make their first visit to Long Pond until 1974, and it wasn't until 1982
that the Twin Summer Classics became a tradition.
For some drivers the track has been both kind and
cruel. Jeff Gordon has won twice at Pocono, but he also blew a shift on the
last restart in the June 95, damaging his engine and handing an easy victory to
teammate Terry Labonte. For Dale Jarrett, his first win with the Robert Yates
team came at Pocono in the July race of 1995, just as people were beginning to
doubt Yates' decision after DJ's lackluster performance to date. But Jarrett
has met the tunnel turn wall as well. Bill Elliott has won four times at Pocono
(a track record he currently holds with Tim Richmond and Darrell Waltrip) but he
also saw his late race lead evaporate when a poor decision in the pits to go
with two tires rather than four cost him a chance to break his long winless
streak and drive the storied “Thunderbat” to victory
lane.
Dale Earnhardt has tasted the champagne at Pocono
twice, but it was also the sight of one of the worst wrecks of his career in
1979, his rookie season. A blown tire put Dale hard into the boiler plate wall
in the tunnel turn while Earnhardt was leading the race and fractured both his
collarbones. He missed four races, which effectively ended Dale's bid to win
rookie of the year and the Winston Cup championship in the same season. In
retrospect, that race also cost Darrell Waltrip the championship that year.
Darrell was already having a lousy weekend, having crashed and totaled his car
in Happy Hour practice. That forced the Digard team
to borrow a car from Al Rudd, Ricky's dad. A rain out on Sunday that postponed
the race until Monday gave the team a little extra time to set up the car, and
Darrell was one of the dominant drivers in his Rent-A-Racer. Cale Yarborough
was leading the race, but Darrell was closing when a late race yellow allowed
DW to close right up Yarborough's rear bumper. The DiGard team gambled that
fresh rubber would give Waltrip an advantage on the restart and with only eight
cars left on the lead lap, he scooted into the pits as did Neil Bonnett.
Unfortunately the green flag never waved and the race ended under caution with
Yarborough winning, Richard Petty in second, and DW in seventh. He lost that
year's title chase by 11 points to Richard Petty. Bad fortune did give an
unexpected break to another rookie driver at that race, and he wasn't even at
the track. On the first lap, noted road racer Al Holbert
and independent driver Roger Hamby were involved in a savage fiery wreck. While
recovering from his injuries, Hamby asked a young Bill Elliott to fill in at
the wheel of Hamby's Chevy.
While Pocono helped Richard Petty win the title in
1979, the track turned on him savagely in the June race of 1980. Ironically,
Richard blew a tire as well, in the same corner as Dale had in '79 and slammed
the same wall. The car got airborne and almost rolled but settled down on three
wheels. (The fourth was heading for the infield having been torn clean off the
car by that point.) Petty was rushed to the hospital where he was diagnosed as
having broken his neck, and he was fortunate not to be left paralyzed. But ever
the gamer, Petty told the media and NASCAR it was only a bad sprain so he could
continue to at least start each event in his quest for an eighth championship.
He had a substitute driver in the car for the next race at Talladega, but went
the distance in the race after that at Michigan. The finish of the race was a
classic, with Neil Bonnett aboard the Wood Brothers' Ford, chasing down Buddy
Baker with four to go and staging a stirring dog fight with Baker to eventually
prevail by about half a second. Making his first NASCAR Winston Cup start that
day was an open wheel driver, Tim Richmond, who would go on to enjoy much
success at Pocono.
Bobby Allison enjoyed three consecutive wins at Pocono
from June of 1982 through the June race of 1983, but no one has suffered more
cruelly at the Pocono track. To win the June 1982 event Bobby Allison needed an
assist from a friend. With the weather threatening, Allison decided to hold off
on pitting under a late caution, fearing the race would be red flagged to an
early conclusion, so threatening were the skies. The gamble failed when the
rain didn't come on cue and Allison ran out of gas on the long back stretch. Longtime
Allison friend, and good sportsman Dave Marcis was
hopelessly out of contention anyway, so he pulled up behind Bobby and pushed
him back to the pits. Remarkably Bobby didn't even lose a lap and went on to
win a race. Unfortunately the driver he beat, Tim Richmond, was sponsored by
the same man as Dave Marcis, JD Stacy, who promptly
fired Marcis, in a very un-sportsmanlike gesture.
Dave was not the only victim who drove for the mercurial Mr. Stacy either. Mark
Martin, Terry Labonte and Benny Parsons were among his other victims.
Unfortunately no friend could help Bobby Allison in
the June Pocono race of 1988. On the opening lap of the event Bobby radioed in
to his Stavola Brothers crew that he thought he had a
tire going down, and that they should be ready for an unplanned pit stop if
need be. Tragically, Allison never made it to pit lane. As he entered the
tunnel corner in a tight pack of cars, the tire blew and Bobby hit the wall
hard and bounced back into traffic. There was no way for Jocko Maggiacomo to avoid slamming Allison's out of control Buick
right in the driver's side numbers. Bobby was comatose when the rescue crews
reached him and had to be cut from the car. He was taken by helicopter to the
hospital with abdominal injuries and a broken leg, but far more serious was a
brain injury that had his very life hanging by a thread. The doctors were
extremely pessimistic about his chances of ever regaining consciousness, and
said that the decision whether to continue life support was in the hands of the
family. That terrible decision fell to Bobby's oldest son Davey, who after some
consideration decided his Daddy was a born fighter, as witnessed by his racing
career, and that the senior Allison would once again defy the odds and pull
through. While Bobby Allison did indeed survive the horrific injuries he
suffered at Pocono that day, it was a long and arduous rehabilitation,
including needing to learn to speak all over again. In the bitterest of
ironies, in 1993, just before the 5th year anniversary of his own near fatal
accident at Pocono, and having buried his other son the year before, Bobby
Allison himself was in a hospital faced with the same terrible decision
concerning his son Davey who had suffered a head injury in a helicopter wreck.
Unfortunately we know the outcome was the worst possible one….and as Forrest
Gump would say, that's all I'm going to say about that. The aching in the
hearts of fans caused by Davey Allison's tragic demise has not healed even
after all these years.
There was another memorable finish at Pocono that
still tugs at the heart strings of race fans who recall that event, in the June
race of 1987. Tim Richmond had missed the first 11 races of the season to a
mysterious illness that was still publicly said to be a bad case of flu that
had led to pneumonia. But by that point, Richmond himself knew the terrible
truth. He was dying of AIDS. During the days leading up to the event it was
obvious to anyone who saw him that Tim still wasn't well, and there was even
speculation as to whether he would be able to race that Sunday. Richmond helped
put some of that speculation to rest by posting a strong third place qualifying
effort even after that long layoff. As sick as he looked when he tightened down
the belts that day prior to the start, once Richmond fired up the engine it was
pure magic…it was as if he had never been gone. By the fifth lap Richmond
passed Terry Labonte for the lead. While he faded a bit in the early stages of
the race, Tim Richmond remained in contention throughout the day, and at the ¾
mark of the event he charged back into the lead. It was a magical thing to
behold the way Tim Richmond could handle a car through those notoriously tough
corners, running a line within tenths of an inch of the last, lap after lap, as
if he and that Monte Carlo had become a single unit. Those privileged enough to
have watched him will never doubt Richmond was one of the all-time greats. By
his own admission tears were streaming down his cheeks as Tim Richmond drove
those last few laps, but he held on to beat Bill Elliott by about a second.
Even Richmond's crew chief, Harry Hyde, who was about as tough as the brass
buttons on a black leather jacket, was misty eyed as he joined his driver in
victory lane. Sadly, the Cinderella comeback was short lived and not long
afterwards Richmond was back in the hospital, and never drove in a Winston Cup
race again. For those who mourn him, what we are left to hold onto are the
memories of that day….the memory of a man far too young, but in the twilight of
his life, standing there in the golden twilight of a Pennsylvania afternoon,
waving to the wildly cheering crowd with his trademark smile, and savoring the
moment and the applause just a little longer than most drivers would have,
knowing there was not much time left.
*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.