Several hundred people lined Bristol Motor Speedway’s pit road in tribute on April 2, 1993, the chilly, damp morning after Alan Kulwicki died. The reigning champion’s team had just withdrawn from that weekend’s race at the Tennessee half-mile, but not before the orange and white No. 7 hauler made an emotional, ceremonial final lap to take the checkered flag on its way home.
A staggering sense of disbelief weighed on those at the track, all of whom were still coming to terms with the news about the plane crash that claimed the life of the 38-year-old driver and three others the previous evening. Twenty-five years later, the NASCAR community is still asking why.
MORE: Find out more about Kulwicki through the years
Less than five months after scoring his greatest professional triumph in one of stock-car racing’s grandest upsets, Alan Kulwicki was gone. The corporate jet from his sponsor, Hooters, had nosed into a field just six miles short of Bristol’s Tri-Cities Airport shortly after 9 that evening. Among the dead were Mark Brooks, Hooters’ sports marketing manager and son of the restaurant chain’s chairman, sports management director Dan Duncan and pilot Charles Campbell.
The NASCAR world was just starting to get to know the reserved, fiercely independent driver-owner who captivated fans with his drama-filled rally to the 1992 title. Reverend Dale Grubba acknowledged Kulwicki’s contradictions at his funeral mass in his home state of Wisconsin, noting the dry sense of humor that often hid behind his all-business exterior. “When he won the championship,” Grubba said in his eulogy, “I thought to myself, ‘It’s going to take the press a year to figure out who Alan Kulwicki is.’ ”
In the months after his calculated title run ended at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Kulwicki himself was still trying to figure out who he was in his new role as NASCAR champion. He was an ambassador by example with a tireless work ethic, but one who cautiously accepted the extra obligations. The fear was that the added requirements would pull him from his painstaking preparations, ultimately affecting his on-track performance.
“Well in some ways, this is probably like being elected president,” Kulwicki told the Knight-Ridder news service before the 1993 season. “I mean, everybody thinks it would be such a neat thing to do, right? But when you get in that position, the demands and responsibilities can make you dizzy.”
RELATED: ‘Dinner with Racers’ podcast pays tribute
But instead of a season of autograph sessions, appearances and sponsors’ photo shoots, Kulwicki left only a legacy. He was remembered as an underdog with Mighty Mouse embroidered on his fire suit, a dark horse who turned down Junior Johnson’s offer to drive the Budweiser-backed No. 11, a job free of the duties of team ownership. He ultimately remained an owner-driver, reasoning that he wanted to follow through on the mission of the team he had created.
Kulwicki was also remembered as an outsider, the rare Midwesterner who elbowed his way into the Southeastern fraternity of NASCAR drivers. Champions came later from such far-flung places as Indiana (Tony Stewart), California (Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick) and Nevada (Kurt and Kyle Busch), but Kulwicki was among the first from outside stock-car racing’s traditional hub.
Kulwicki’s interests also made him an outsider. While his competitors tended to focus on outdoor activities such as hunting and fishing, Kulwicki enjoyed jazz, Broadway plays and dancing. He also brought with him a college degree in mechanical engineering, providing a level of know-how that his rivals could only emulate with their shade-tree backgrounds.
And Kulwicki was remembered as religious, a devoted Catholic who placed a medal of St. Christopher — the patron saint of travelers — under the driver’s seat of his race cars. Kulwicki attended the 9 a.m. Thursday mass at Charlotte’s St. Thomas Aquinas Church on the day he died, acknowledging the associate pastor with a glance and a nod before resuming his prayers.
His passing made some of the most devout drivers in the sport question how such a thing could happen.
“You want to give God the glory and honor and credit for everything, but it’s times like these that make you wonder what it’s all about,” Darrell Waltrip said that weekend, verging on tears in an interview with Al Pearce. “These times really devastate all of us. Here’s a guy who’s worked so hard to accomplish something, who’s ready to enjoy all his hard work. Then this happens. It just tells us one thing — we’ve got to live every day like it’s our last.”
Several in the NASCAR garage shared Waltrip’s sentiments. “None of us know when our time is up,” said Davey Allison. “We just have to do our best. Alan’s program was an independent operation and he was an independent person. It took that independence to do what he did because it really is unheard of.”
Chillingly, Allison was killed in an aviation accident just three and a half months later at age 32, another difficult chapter in an especially trying span of tragedy for the motorsports community. Neil Bonnett and Rodney Orr died the following February in Daytona, and international Formula One star Ayrton Senna and rookie Roland Ratzenberger perished two and a half months later on consecutive days at the San Marino Grand Prix.
Rusty Wallace didn’t want to race that weekend at Bristol. “My mind’s in another area,” he told reporters after winning a joyless pole position that day, suggesting that officials postpone the event. Two days later, he led three-quarters of the laps and honored Kulwicki’s memory with a clockwise “Polish Victory Lap” as part of his muted celebration.
The Easter holiday mercifully came the following weekend, giving the circuit time to collect itself and grieve. At a Charlotte memorial service one week after the crash, mourners watched a video montage of racing highlights set to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way,” a final homage to Kulwicki’s self-reliant streak.
Twenty-five years after his passing, Kulwicki’s name will appear on ballots for NASCAR Hall of Fame induction for the fourth straight year. Voting Day will be yet another referendum on a premier-series champion who was just starting to become better acquainted with his peers and his newfound stature.
VOTE NOW: NASCAR Hall of Fame fan ballot
As with every nominee, the statistical lines — five victories and one title over seven full seasons — don’t paint the whole picture. With Kulwicki, there are plenty of stories left to tell, even for a community that still asks why.
“There are very, very, very few people in the world that are as ambitious as Alan Kulwicki that will ever accomplish their dream,” Mark Martin told the Associated Press one year after the accident. “It’s a tragic loss. And I never really have come to grips with why things happen the way they do.”
