The last race of the 1992 NASCAR season brought Richard Petty's farewell, Jeff Gordon's debut and a title decided by the margin Alan Kulwicki needed.
Alan Kulwicki won the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup championship by finishing second to Bill Elliott at the Hooters 500, taking the title by 10 points. The race was also the final event of Richard Petty's career and the first full-season appearance of rookie Jeff Gordon.
Alan Kulwicki won the 1992 Winston Cup championship at the Hooters 500 by finishing second behind Bill Elliott at Atlanta Motor Speedway on 15 November 1992. Elliott won the race, his fifth of the season, and Kulwicki took the title by 10 points, the closest finish in NASCAR's history until 2011.
How did the points system decide the 1992 title?
The points system introduced in 1975 was used until the end of the 2003 season, so a champion could be decided well before the last race or, as in 1992, on the final afternoon of the year. Six drivers went to Atlanta with a mathematical chance of the title.
Among the eight intermediate tracks hosting Winston Cup races in 1992, Atlanta Motor Speedway was one. Its four-turn oval measured 2.449 km (1.522 miles), with turns banked at 24 degrees and the front and back stretches banked at five degrees. Bob Jenkins called the race for ESPN's Speedworld series, with Benny Parsons and Ned Jarrett in the booth.
Kulwicki was the last owner-driver champion until Tony Stewart matched the feat in 2011.
What did the Winston Million mean for Davey Allison?
The Winston Million offered $1 million to a driver who won three of NASCAR's four biggest events in one season: the Daytona 500, the spring Talladega race, the Coca-Cola 600 and the Southern 500. Only Bill Elliott had earned the bonus, in 1985.
Davey Allison won the Daytona 500 to open 1992 and reached five wins by the time he got to Phoenix. Crashes disrupted his year, including a crash at Bristol in April, a violent crash crossing the line at The Winston in May that left him with a bruised lung and concussion, and an airborne crash at Pocono in July that caused a concussion and a broken arm. His brother Clifford was killed in a practice crash at Michigan in August.
What went wrong for Allison at Darlington?
Allison led the Southern 500 until a crew member misread the radar, and he pitted rather than staying out in front. Darrell Waltrip inherited the lead, and five laps after the stop the race was called because of rain.
Allison finished fifth, and the Winston Million slipped out of reach. Waltrip's win was his second of the year and his first in the Southern 500, completing a career Grand Slam of NASCAR's four Crown Jewel races.
Who were the six contenders heading into Atlanta?
Davey Allison led with 3928 points. Alan Kulwicki was 30 points behind, Bill Elliott 40 back, Harry Gant 97 back, Kyle Petty 98 back and Mark Martin 113 back. Ricky Rudd, Darrell Waltrip, Terry Labonte and Ernie Irvan were the next drivers down the table.
Entering the weekend Allison was the only contender who controlled his own destiny. A fifth-place finish or better would have clinched the title, and leading a lap would have brought the figure down to a seventh-place finish or better.
How did Kulwicki build his challenge?
Kulwicki had two victories, at Bristol in the spring and Pocono in June. He had 16 top-ten finishes in 28 races and ten top-five results, and he had finished inside the top twenty in most of the rest.
His career had been shaped by offers from Junior Johnson, whom he turned down in 1989 and again in 1990. When Zerex backing ended, Hooters signed on after Kulwicki qualified on pole at Atlanta in the spring. He ran his own team and placed Mighty Mouse decals over the Thunderbird lettering, which read Underbird, because he saw himself as the underdog in the fight.
How did Bill Elliott fall behind?
Elliott had joined Junior Johnson's team in 1992 after spending his full-time career at Melling Racing. He won four straight races in the spring, tying a Cup record that had been reached only four times before, and he took a 154-point lead after the Dover race in September.
His form then faded. He finished 31st at Martinsville after an engine failure, 26th at North Wilkesboro and 30th at Charlotte after a broken sway bar. At Phoenix he withdrew with a cracked cylinder head, and Allison's win swung the standings by 110 points.
Could Harry Gant become the oldest champion?
Gant was 52 and hoping to become the oldest champion in Cup history. He had won four consecutive Cup races in September 1991, earning the nickname Mr. September, and he had won at Dover and Michigan in 1992. He had ten top-five finishes and 15 top-tens before Atlanta.
Kyle Petty had two wins that season, at Watkins Glen and Rockingham, and 17 top-ten finishes. He had a chance to become the first third-generation champion, after his grandfather Lee and father Richard. Mark Martin had two wins, at Martinsville and Charlotte, and 17 top-ten finishes, but he was the furthest back of the contenders.
How did Rick Mast win the pole?
Rick Mast took his first career pole at 289.976 km/h (180.183 mph), a NASCAR qualifying speed never before reached on an intermediate circuit. It also marked the final Oldsmobile pole, as General Motors was pulling the marque out of NASCAR after that race.
Brett Bodine joined Mast on the front row in the Quaker State Ford. Richard Petty qualified 39th after standing on his first-round time, and rookie Jeff Gordon was the fastest second-round qualifier, which earned him a place in the 1993 Busch Clash wild card draw.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Race length | Atlanta Motor Speedway, a 2.449 km (1.522 mile) four-turn oval |
| Pole | Rick Mast, 289.976 km/h (180.183 mph) |
| Winner | Bill Elliott, the fifth win of his season |
| Champion | Alan Kulwicki, 4078 points, 10 ahead of Elliott |
| Lead changes | 20 among nine drivers |
| Margin of victory | 8.06 seconds |
How did the race begin?
A record crowd of 160,000 attended, and temporary grandstands were filled to watch Petty's last ride. Mast's Oldsmobile and Bodine's Ford ran wheel to wheel into turn one, with Bodine ahead for the opening lap, before the pair tangled and crashed in that corner on the second lap.
Dale Earnhardt, the defending series champion, slipped through to take the lead. Davey Allison slowed to avoid the wreck, and Hut Stricklin hit him from behind, bending his left-rear fender. Mark Martin changed all four tyres during the caution after he slid sideways through debris.
What happened to Richard Petty's car?
On lap 95 Ken Schrader and Dick Trickle tangled on the front stretch, and the cars spun into a chain of collisions that included Darrell Waltrip, Wally Dallenbach Jr. and Rich Bickle. Petty ran into Bickle, which wrecked the nose of his car and damaged the oil cooler. Leaking oil caught fire, and Petty rolled into the infield in flames, uninjured.
His crew worked all afternoon to repair the car. With two laps remaining Petty rejoined the race, with no front sheet metal and no hood, and he finished 35th. He joked afterwards that his exit had been spectacular, though not in the way he had intended.
Why did Gordon's crew matter to the title?
Around lap 118 Jeff Gordon came in for service, and his crew of Ray Evernham's Rainbow Warriors made errors that Evernham later likened to the Keystone Kops. A length of duct tape had been left on Gordon's trunk lid, and it dropped onto the track as he pulled away, then struck Allison's air dam.
The damage forced Allison to fight back from second place, and his crew repaired the car under caution. Gordon crashed out on lap 164, finishing 31st, while Martin's engine failed on lap 160 and left him 32nd.
How did Richard Petty's final race end for the contenders?
By the halfway point three of the six contenders had lost their chance. Petty's car trouble ended his bid, Gant battled influenza and fell laps down, and Martin's engine failed. Elliott had led four times before he went past Ernie Irvan on the 167th lap and regained the top of the points.
Kulwicki was running second, and Allison was seventh despite his car troubles. An earlier crash by Earnhardt on lap 204 had brought out the fifth caution, and it led to Kulwicki overtaking Elliott three laps into the restart.
What was the lap 254 crash?
Irvan, who had been losing laps with a troubled car, lost control as he left turn 4 on the 254th lap and drifted back across the track in front of Rusty Wallace and Allison. Wallace avoided him, but Allison's car was T-boned, and the damage broke his steering column and a tie rod.
Allison's Havoline Ford was towed to the garage and repaired, and he rejoined the race after losing forty-three laps. His championship hopes all but vanished, and he finished 27th, third in the points behind Kulwicki and Elliott.
How did the race finish?
With seventy-four laps remaining, Kulwicki led Elliott by 15 points in the standings. He needed to stay near Elliott, and he also wanted the five bonus points for leading the most laps. He chose not to make a full fuel stop and took only fuel late on, which left his crew unsure of how much had gone in.
Elliott led the last 13 laps and won, while Kulwicki finished second to clinch the title. The ten-point margin stood as the closest in NASCAR history until 2011, when Tony Stewart beat Carl Edwards on the tiebreak.
How did Kulwicki celebrate the title?
Kulwicki completed a Polish victory lap, driving clockwise around the speedway to wave at the fans, the same kind of lap he had driven after his first win at Phoenix in 1988. Kulwicki eased into pit road on his last stop, wary of a speeding penalty or stalling again.
Richard Petty was given a final ceremonial lap, and the crowd heard Alabama's song about him over the public address system as he waved from the car.
What is the legacy of the 1992 Hooters 500?
Nine former or future Winston Cup champions drove in the race, and 11 touring series champions were entered in total. Petty, Gordon and Earnhardt started together only in this race, which is often cited as the turning point from NASCAR's old era to its new one.
ESPN recorded a 4.1 rating and 2.5 million households, which broke its previous auto racing audience record. Kulwicki was the last owner-driver champion until Tony Stewart matched the feat in 2011.
What happened to the 1992 title contenders in 1993?
Kulwicki died on 1 April 1993, when the plane carrying him and several Hooters executives crashed short of the runway at Tri-Cities Regional Airport in Tennessee. Jimmy Hensley took over the No. 7 car, and Geoff Bodine later bought the team. Dale Earnhardt replaced him in the International Race of Champions, finishing third and fifth in the two rounds he drove.
Davey Allison crashed a helicopter while trying to land at Talladega on 12 July 1993 and died the next morning. Terry Labonte drove in his place at the final International Race of Champions event and finished sixth, which secured Allison's posthumous title.
The 1992 season ended with one of the closest finishes in NASCAR's history and a changing of the guard, as Petty retired and Gordon arrived. The race is still remembered for those three stories as much as for the result.
