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Features

Then & Now

NASCAR.COM pays tribute to two outgoing vets
and welcomes two rookies to the Cup fold.

Each week will preview one year in the career of the retiring drivers,
as well as a pop-culture look at what's going on in the world today.
Mark Martin

Mark Martin

Rusty Wallace

Rusty Wallace

During his Cup championship season, Rusty Wallace swept the Richmond races in 1989, the last driver to do so.

Wallace won the Pontiac Excitement 400 on March 26, 1989, and the Miller High Life 400 on Sept. 10 -- exactly 16 years ago Saturday night, when he will make his final start at the .750-mile track.

Mark Martin has 39 starts at Richmond, with one win, 12 top-five finishes and 22 top-10s. His average finish is 12.3, including three DNFs.

Wallace will be making his 44th start at RIR. He has six wins, 21 top-fives, 29 top-10s, and average finish of 9.4 and four DNFs.

Kyle Busch

Kyle Busch

Travis Kvapil

Travis Kvapil

Kyle Busch and Travis Kvapil return to Richmond for Saturday night's Chevy Rock & Roll 400 -- the final "regular season" race to set the field for the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

Busch won last weekend at California, becoming the Cup series' youngest winner, 20 years, 4 months and 2 days, eclipsing Donald Thomas by four days.

Earlier this year at RIR, Busch started 10th and finished fourth in the Chevy American Revolution 400 on May 14. It was one of six top-five finishes and nine top-10s.

Kvapil started 21st and finished 22nd in that race. He trails Busch by 61 points in the rookie standings.

Also in 1989 ...

  • News
  • Feb. 24 -- Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini placed a $3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie. Khomeini's fatwa against Rushdie was reaffirmed this year. In response to requests to withdraw the fatwa, Iran has stated that only the person who issued it may withdraw it; Khomeini, however, died June 30, 1989.
  • Entertainment
  • June 23 -- Batman was released and soon became the highest grossing movie of the year, earning $251,188,924 domestically and more than $160 million abroad. It was directed by Tim Burton and starred Jack Nicholson as the Joker, Michael Keaton as Batman and Kim Basinger as reporter Vicki Vale. Although Keaton played the nominal hero of the film, Nicholson received top billing.
  • Sports
  • Aug. 10 -- Ten months after undergoing surgery for cancer in his pitching arm, Giants pitcher Dave Dravecky returned to the major leagues, winning 4-3. However, Dravecky's comeback bid ended tragically five days later when his pitching arm broke in the sixth inning of his second start. Two years later, the cancer-stricken arm was amputated.
  • Deaths
  • Entertainer Lucille Ball ... singer Keith Whitley ... comedian Gilda Radner ... voice actor Mel Blanc ... bull rider Lane Frost ... stock car driver Tim Richmond ... Triple Crown winner Secretariat

Also in 2005 ...

  • News
  • Sept. 3 -- Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who quietly advanced the conservative ideology of the U.S. Supreme Court under his leadership, died Saturday evening. He was 80. President Nixon appointed Rehnquist to the Supreme Court in 1972, and in 1986, President Reagan tapped him as chief justice to replace Warren Burger.
  • Entertainment
  • Sept. 2 -- Bob Denver, whose portrayal of castaway Gilligan on the 1960s TV show Gilligan's Island -- the longest "three-hour tour" in history -- made him an iconic figure to generations of TV viewers, died at 70. Denver passed away at Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital in North Carolina of complications from treatment he was receiving for cancer.
  • Sports
  • Sept. 6 -- The Louisiana Superdome was so heavily damaged during Hurricane Katrina that it likely will have to be torn down, a disaster official working with the governor's office told CNN. The Superdome is the home of the Saints, who will play their home opener in New Jersey on Monday against the Giants, but it is unclear where they will play the rest of their games.
  • Still to come in 2005 ...
  • Oct. 18 -- "Book the Twelfth" will be the 12th book of A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. The title has not been released and is referred to by its ISBN number, 0064410153.
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