Kulwicki's 1988 Phoenix win much like his career (cont'd)

With that situation fixed, Kulwicki once again knifed his way back through the pack, somehow missing a six-car pileup that took out Mark Martin and Johnny Rutherford. But it appeared all Kulwicki's hard work might go for naught, because Ricky Rudd had dominated up to that point, leading 182 laps.

Still, Kulwicki continued to think positive, and it paid off when Rudd's car suddenly began spewing steam on Lap 297 -- and he turned directly into the garage, the victim of a broken radiator hose.

"It was a radiator hose, and that's disappointing. When I got the lead, the temperature gauge went crazy. I backed off and was running 50 to 60 percent on the straightaways," Rudd said.

From that point, it was just a matter of clicking off the laps -- and hoping bad luck would stay away -- as Kulwicki beat Labonte to the line by 18 seconds for his first Cup victory.

"I'll tell you, with about 20 laps to go, I almost started crying," he said.

In celebration, Kulwicki drove his car backwards down the front straight, much to the pleasure of the 60,000 fans in attendance.

"There will never be another first win, for me or for the track, and I wanted to do something the fans would remember," he said. "I've been thinking about this for a couple of months. Some guys spray champagne, other guys stand on top of their car. I just wanted to be different."

Kulwicki maintained that he might have been able to catch Rudd, even without the mechanical issues.

"We were closing on Ricky and had cut his lead from five seconds down to about three and we thought we had a chance to catch him even if he had not fallen out," Kulwicki said. "No one will ever know if we could, but after all the bad breaks we had all week, we feel like we earned everything we got."

Davey Allison, Bill Elliott and Rusty Wallace completed the top five.

The race foreshadowed what would take place four years later, when Kulwicki would win the 1992 championship in the season-finale at Atlanta by finishing second to Elliott after Allison crashed and was eliminated from contention.

NASCAR's first foray into Arizona came at the Arizona State Fairgrounds dirt mile in 1951. Daytona Beach native Marshall Teague drove one of the Fabulous Hudson Hornets to victory in a 150-lap race. The series returned four years later, as Tim Flock took the win in a Carl Kiekhaefer Chrysler. A year later, it was Buck Baker's turn for Kiekhaefer. And Colorado native John Rostek scored his only NASCAR victory in 1960.

Phoenix International Raceway was completed in 1964 and primarily hosted Indy-car events until NASCAR added the track to the schedule in 1988.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.