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Written by:
Tom Jensen
04/22/2008 - 10:57 AM
Harrisburg, N.C.
SPEED will televise the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race XXIV and the NASCAR Sprint Showdown live on May 17, as well as provide more than 90 hours of support programming prior to the event. Stay tuned to SPEEDtv.com for frequent updates... ยป More Photos
The field for the inaugural running of NASCAR’s All-Star race, then called the Winston, numbered just 12 in 1985: Bobby Allison, Geoff Bodine, Dale Earnhardt, Bill Elliott, Harry Gant, Terry Labonte, Benny Parsons, Richard Petty, Tim Richmond, Ricky Rudd, Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip.
Why 12? They were the drivers who won Winston Cup races in 1984, and hence were the only invitees to the 70-lap race, which paid $200,000 to the winner, astonishing money in those days.
Labonte, the reigning Winston Cup Series champion started from the pole in his Chevrolet, but Waltrip passed him on Lap 1 and led the first 19 laps. Labonte, conscious of the $10,000 bonus paid to the leader at the 20-lap mark, shot past Waltrip’s Junior Johnson-owned Chevrolet on the backstretch of Lap 20 to pocket the spiff.
The two would swap the lead three more times, with drivers required to make a pit stop between laps 30 and 40. On Lap 31, Harry Gant, pitted Hal Needham’s Mach 1 Racing Chevrolet, taking over the lead seven laps later when Waltrip made his stop. After the stops cycled through, Gant was 2.7 seconds up on Labonte, with Waltrip third, 3.3
Waltrip quickly retook second place, but with 10 laps to go, Gant’s lead stood at 3.1 seconds, an eternity in NASCAR terms. Then Waltrip got busy. He trimmed Gant’s margin to 1.32 seconds with four laps to go. The next time around, Waltrip had sliced it in half.
On the race’s penultimate lap, Waltrip took the lead in Turn 4, and he crossed the start-finish line 0.31 seconds ahead of Gant to win a place in history and a $200,000 paycheck.
But that was just the start of the excitement. At virtually the exact instant Waltrip crossed the finish line, the motor in his Junior Johnson Chevrolet exploded, ensuring it wouldn’t have to go through NASCAR’s post-race inspection.
Afterwards, Waltrip credited his improbable late-race surge to a severe tongue-lashing that his owner gave him as the race wound down. “It looked like I was going to have to settle for second,” Waltrip said after the race. “Then Junior got on the radio and inspired me. He asked me if I wanted the 75 (thousand) or the 200. I decided to give it all I had because I sure wanted that 200 grand.”
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