The decision to have California's Auto Club Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway switch fall dates for the 2009 season did more than bring a Labor Day race back to the Southeast. Now a part of the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup, teams contending for the title now must redouble their efforts on the 2-mile oval in the Inland Valley.

That's similar to the situation in the 1985 Western Winston 500, when the season's championship battle between Darrell Waltrip and Bill Elliott came down to the final race at Riverside International Raceway. The 2.62-mile road course had been on the NASCAR schedule since 1958, but starting in 1981, the January season opener was moved to November, making it the season finale.

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I'd be lying to you if I told you I wasn't relieved when [Elliott] had trouble. I took it pretty easy after that.

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DARRELL WALTRIP

Despite an amazing 11-win season for Elliott, Waltrip was able to compile consistent finishes, allowing him to erase a 200-point deficit in a seven-race span, and giving him a tenuous 20-point cushion as the series headed west. And both expected the battle to go down to the wire, as Elliott and Waltrip had Riverside victories on their resumes.

Waltrip qualified third and Elliott fifth, setting up what promised to be a furious finish. Certainly Waltrip expected that he'd need every point he could collect to hold off the hard-charging Georgian. The same could be said for Elliott, who knew what he needed to do to overcome Waltrip's advantage.

What neither driver expected was the failure of an $8 shifter pin in Elliott's car soon after the green flag dropped.

"The first thing in our game plan was to lead a lap [for the five-point bonus]," Waltrip said. "I was trying to get that done right about the time that Bill had his trouble.

"I didn't want his having trouble to change our game plan because I felt it was a perfect plan. But I'd be lying to you if I told you I wasn't relieved when he had trouble. I took it pretty easy after that."

Elliott said the trouble started with what seemed to be a normal upshift on Lap 6.

"I was shifting from third to fourth when it just broke," Elliott said. "It hadn't before this year, but sometimes things break. It was just a little part and there's nothing you can do about it."

While Elliott sat in his car during the repair period, as the minutes -- and laps -- ticked away, he pondered the nature of things.

"All that time I was sitting in the pits, I kept thinking about how we'd done everything we set out to do this year but sometimes things just didn't go our way," Elliott later said. "I guess I did say something to myself like, 'This just ain't my day.'"

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In an odd twist of irony, the broken shifter pin -- which Elliott said was the only General Motors part on his Ford -- was manufactured in Franklin, Tenn., Waltrip's hometown.

However, Waltrip still had to take care of business. While Ricky Rudd and Terry Labonte dueled up front, Waltrip bided his time in the top 10, eventually finishing seventh and winning his third Cup championship by 101 points, as Elliott wound up 31st.

"I was telling somebody a little while ago that I call the three championships good, better and best," Waltrip said. "This one means a great deal to me because we had to overcome a great year by another driver to do it."

Rudd overcame a flat tire and several scrapes with lapped traffic to chase down Labonte over the final 30 laps, finally taking the lead for good on Lap 96 when Labonte pitted for service, then holding off a furious late-lap rally for a .45-second margin of victory.

"It was really a catchup race all day for us," Rudd said. "I didn't want to think about what this [win] could mean to our team, because it might have got me too excited. It's a good thing I kept a cool head or I could have overdriven into one of the turns, and that could have been disastrous.

"[Labonte] was on my back bumper, shoving me right to the last, waiting for me to make a mistake. I really had to drive with the mirror quite a bit. But I knew what he was going to do before he did it. I anticipated him and just went with him."

When asked if he'd be willing to trade his season for Waltrip's championship, Elliott didn't hesitate.

"There's no way I would swap with Darrell," Elliott said. "He and his guys deserve congratulations for winning the championship, but we had an excellent year and it probably will be a long time before anyone does again what we did this year.

"After Darrell won his first race, it took him 188 races to win the first championship. We haven't run 188 races yet. And every year we keep getting better. We may have lost the championship, but we never lost our pride or determination. We came here 20 points behind and gave it our best shot. It just wasn't enough. But this whole year has been very special."

Elliott would have the opportunity to celebrate his own championship three seasons later, in what would be Riverside's last hurrah. The track closed shortly thereafter and the property was partially developed into a shopping mall.