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FORT WORTH — From track “weepers” and multicar inaugural-lap pileups to a winner’s circle confrontation between two Indianapolis 500 champs, Texas Motor Speedway has been the site of some of the most remarkable, memorable and bizarre story lines of any circuit on the NASCAR circuit.
The 1.5-mile oval outside Fort Worth celebrates its 20th year hosting a NASCAR race this week with Saturday night’s Duck Commander 500 (7:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, Sirius XM NASCAR Radio.) And for those of us around at the very beginning, it seems a fitting time to reminisce a bit about the facility’s famously storied early history.
As they like to remind you in Texas, everything is “bigger” there. And it has been. The track’s early trials and tribulations have only contributed to its great character and esteem.
In my 25 years of sports journalism, the opening races at Texas Motor Speedway still remain among the most unforgettable times of my career.
Never before and never since have I covered a specific beat that provided as much sensation, controversy and must-see-TV as TMS in the early years.
Two decades later, the track located at the intersection of an interstate and two major Texas highways has evolved into one of the sport’s most prestigious venues. It boasts the largest HD screen, named “Big Hoss,” fantastic spectator seating and the most condominiums of any track on the circuit. Plus really great racing.
Nearly 195,000 people showed up for the inaugural Texas race in 1997 and most of those who were ticket holders then still are, two decades later proving they are as faithful and optimistic as they were devoted.
It turns out those have been good traits for this endeavor.
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I had just started work at The Dallas Morning News newspaper in the spring of 1997 a few weeks after Jeff Burton took the checkered flag for NASCAR’s first Cup series race at Texas in April. The new facility was considered the “home track” to cover. After reporting on the Indianapolis 500 in May, I was immediately back home in Dallas, ready for the Indy Racing League’s night-time debut at TMS the next week.
There, a 26-year old future three-time NASCAR Cup champion Tony Stewart put on an open-wheel show for the ages, racing wheel-to-wheel lap-after-lap with Buddy Lazier. Stewart — who went on to win two Cup races at Texas (2006 and 2011) — led a race-high 100 of the 208 laps only to suffer an engine failure that night.
But toward the end of the race there were questions regarding the scoring shown on the monitor in the press box. And soon after making my way down to the infield to prepare for a super-tight Saturday night newspaper deadline, the real craziness began.
While trying to get post-race quotes from the apparent first-time winner Billy Boat (XFINITY Series driver Chad’s dad) and Boat’s team owner, Texan A.J. Foyt, I was standing a few feet away when driver Arie Luyendyk confronted Foyt in Victory Lane. After questioning the results, challenging Foyt and suggesting he was actually the legitimate race winner, Luyendyk tumbled into the victory flowers. Boat and Foyt hoisted the trophy.
It was surreal. I was on a crazy tight deadline. But the next day in a hastily called press conference, Luyendyk was declared the winner after USAC conceded a scoring error.
After USAC officials suggested problems with the track’s scoring system, TMS President Eddie Gossage took the press conference podium and strongly reminded that the speedway wasn’t responsible for the scoring.
“I got home at 3 in the morning knowing we gave the trophy to the wrong winner and had a press conference for 8 in the morning,” said Gossage. “I go in to the press conference with two hours of sleep and I’m sitting in the back row and the head scorer for USAC says that the speedway’s timing and scoring equipment didn’t work.
“He says it again and then a third time so I just walked up on stage and stepped up to the podium and eased him to the side and said, “Texas Motor Speedway doesn’t own a stop watch. … People have a right to know when they leave the race track who the winner is and we all didn’t get what we paid for.”
Then after a dramatic exit and door slam, Gossage recalls, “My dad called from Tennessee and said, ‘You were raised better, acting like an idiot on television for all the world to see, embarrassing me and your mom.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘You didn’t know it was live on ESPN?’
“I didn’t. And then I was like, ‘You’re right, sir. I’m sorry. I know better.’ “
Gossage has a good laugh recalling the whole ordeal now.
Foyt, who still disputes the result, kept the trophy and Luyendyk was given another one.
A year later, Boat recalled of the evening, “We went into Victory Circle knowing nothing about a scoring error, only that someone was talking derogatory about our race team. You don’t do that in a big Texan’s Victory Circle.”
Luyendyk, of Holland, said the incident — replayed repeatedly all over the world at the time — actually made him and the Texas Motor Speedway more famous overseas.
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And then in 1998 came NASCAR’s second Cup try.
After two multi-car accidents in the inaugural race, conventional wisdom promised this one just had to go down more smoothly.
NASCAR’s biggest stars such as Rusty Wallace, Ernie Irvan, Dale Earnhardt and Mark Martin were among those who crashed in the opening race. Darrell Waltrip finished last after being involved in a 13-car wreck on the very first turn of the very first lap of Cup competition there. And Burton ended up winning by 4 seconds.
Surely, everyone figured, the second race would be smoother.
It wasn’t.
“Weepers” became a familiar word. The water seeping through the track caused qualifying to be completed a day late. And of all things, there was a huge 10-car accident on the second lap of the race. Jeff Gordon and yes, Waltrip, were collected in that melee.
Mark Martin won the race by a half-second over Chad Little and Robert Pressley.
Shortly after, TMS went through a re-paving and re-fitting, track owner Bruton Smith and Gossage committed to correction.
“The first year it was just terrible and everything seemed to go wrong,” Gossage conceded this week. “And the second year, obviously you try to improve so all of a sudden here’s these weepers that came through.
“I remember driving into the infield and in the rearview mirror saw Lake Speed knock the wall down in Turn 1 in qualifying. I thought, ‘Oh no.’
“I’m always the worst critic,” Gossage said, logging the long hours readying for the weekend’s big events. “There are things other people might not have noticed but I did. For some reason things worked really well in 1999 when Terry Labonte won and it’s been better since then. That’s the way a race weekend was supposed to go.”
Not only has it been better, it’s typically a discussion point in every season review. In 2005, Texas finally got the second date it had longed for since I worked at the Dallas paper nearly a decade earlier. And the facility — big enough to fit every Texas sporting stadium in its infield — is also a big-time player in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
It’s still providing those jaw-dropping, television highlight moments seemingly born with the track.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. scored his first Cup win at TMS in April 2000. And Chase Elliott got his first XFINITY Series win here in 2014 driving for Junior at JR Motorsports.
Gordon, who won this race in 2009, has starred in a couple TMS highlight reels, too. He was involved in a pair of high profile skirmishes from taking on Burton on-track after a wreck in 2010 to a crazy pit road scuffle with Brad Keselowski in 2014.
“You have to be honest,” Gossage said. “And looking back, it’s just how things occurred. I wouldn’t trade any of it, if it is what got us where we are. I’ll take where we stand in our success as the most successful major market speedway in the history of this sport. I’ll take that.
“I won’t trade my job with the guy running any other race track because I’m just so proud of what’s been accomplished here.”