Greatest race of all time? 1992 Hooters 500 had it all (cont'd)

Richard Petty wrecked on Lap 95 in what appeared to be an unfitting ending to his career, but his crew patched up his car and he was able to finish his last race.

Attrition affected the championship race, too.

Kyle Petty and Mark Martin fell out with engine woes, and points leader Davey Allison was involved in a crash with Ernie Irvan on Lap 254, taking him out of title contention.

“

Maybe Alan did have it all calculated. But I get the feeling that fate intervened that day.

”

TOM ROBERTS, publicist

That left Kulwicki and Elliott to battle for the race win and the championship in what turned out to be an epic battle yet to be equaled in the NASCAR world.

In the closing laps, Kulwicki and his Paul Andrews-led crew began plotting a strategy to win the title.

Kulwicki, even with his main focus on driving the car, was a major player in the discussions.

"He could floor me with his capability of driving the car and thinking about strategy," Roberts said.

Kulwicki and his crew figured they'd need to take the bonus points for leading the most laps so they stayed on the track, even as Elliott was closing on them, until Lap 310, giving them 103 laps led. When Kulwicki stopped, the crew added fuel only and pushed him out of his stall. Because he'd lost a gear in his transmission on an earlier stop, he was slow getting back up to speed and Elliott won the race, leading a total of 102 laps, with Kulwicki second. But Kulwicki won the championship by 10 points, because he got the five extra points for leading the most laps. Had those points gone to Elliott, the two would have tied and Elliott would have gotten the title because he led the tie-breaker category, five wins to two.

But all that was news to Elliott until after the race was over.

"I never even thought about it until after the race," he said. "I won the race and lost the championship."

After that race, NASCAR would never be quite the same again.

Just days after the Hooters 500, Elliott's crew chief, Tim Brewer, was dismissed by team owner Junior Johnson, and the team never really recovered. "It was all downhill from there," Elliott said.

Kulwicki ran just five more races before dying in a plane crash en route to a race at Bristol. Three months after that, Allison died after a helicopter crash at Talladega.

Elliott said he was never all that close to Kulwicki, but he respects what he was able to do.

"He was different, a hard guy to get to know," Elliott said. "He kept to himself. He was driven and very intense in what he did.

"He did a good job [winning the championship]. It would be virtually impossible to do it in today's world."

Roberts, now the publicist for Kurt Busch, said that looking back on the events surrounding that race, there may have been some unexplained forces at play that November afternoon.

"Maybe Alan did have it all calculated," Roberts said. "But I get the feeling that fate intervened that day."

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