From a 1982 Buick entry to Alan Kulwicki's 1992 championship, and the Hooters sponsorship dispute that ended the AK Racing name in 1993.
AK Racing was a Winston Cup team founded by Bill Terry in 1982 as Terry Motorsports. It took the AK name when Alan Kulwicki became its owner-driver, won the 1992 title, and ended its run in 1993 after Kulwicki's death.
AK Racing was a Winston Cup team that began life as Terry Motorsports before it was renamed for its most famous driver, Alan Kulwicki. The team was founded by Bill Terry in 1982, and it won the 1992 championship under Kulwicki, who was also its owner-driver. Kulwicki was killed in a plane crash in April 1993, and the team's run under the AK name ended that year.
Who founded AK Racing and when?
Bill Terry founded the operation in 1982 as Terry Motorsports. It ran Buicks with Bob Jarvis, Tommy Ellis and Butch Lindley behind the wheel in 1982 and 1983. Jarvis drove the debut race at the Nashville event in the No. 32 Buick and finished 28th out of 30 cars.
Results in the first two seasons were modest. Bosco Lowe qualified 40th and finished 16th at the World 600, and Butch Lindley finished 25th at Martinsville in 1983 after suffering rear end problems.
A team built around one owner-driver who won a title, then lost him in a plane crash months later.
How did Alan Kulwicki join the team?
Terry hired Alan Kulwicki for part-time races in 1985, and the team switched to Ford engines to run him. Kulwicki's best finish that year was 13th at Charlotte, a result that pointed to a driver who would soon define the team's identity.
In 1986 Terry took the team full time with Kulwicki at the wheel, and Quincy's Family Steakhouse provided the sponsorship. Kulwicki failed to qualify for the Daytona 500 that year, and the car was renumbered from No. 32 to No. 35 for the Atlanta race.
Why did Kulwicki buy the team?
Terry backed out of the operation later in 1986, and Kulwicki bought the team from him. The operation took the AK Racing name and relocated to Kannapolis, North Carolina, and Kulwicki ran it as an owner-driver for the rest of his career.
His first season under his own control showed what the team could do. Kulwicki finished fourth at Martinsville earlier in 1986 and seventh at the fall Dover race, and his results earned him Rookie of the Year honours for 1986 even though he missed six races.
How did the No. 7 car become a title contender?
For 1987 Kulwicki renumbered the car to No. 7, which he ran for the rest of his career. Zerex Antifreeze became the sponsor after Quincy's left, and the car took three poles and ended the year 15th in points.
Kulwicki's first career victory arrived in 1988 at Phoenix International Raceway, and he celebrated with the now-famous Polish Victory Lap. He won again in 1990 at North Carolina Speedway, and that season put him inside the top ten of the standings for the first time. Zerex's parent company then chose to focus on its Valvoline brand, and the sponsorship ended after the season.
What was the 1991 sponsorship fight about?
Kulwicki turned down an offer from Junior Johnson to drive for him in the offseason, then tried to sign with Kraft General Foods to carry Maxwell House on the No. 7. Johnson took the Maxwell House sponsorship for his own team, which left Kulwicki without a sponsor when the season started.
A U.S. Army sponsorship covered the Daytona 500 as a promotional effort around Operation Desert Storm, but it was only for one race. The team ran unsponsored for the next two races, and then the Atlanta spring race changed its fortunes.
How did Hooters come to sponsor the team?
Hooters had sponsored Mark Stahl's No. 82 Ford for the first three races of 1991, and Atlanta was regarded as the chain's home track. Stahl did not qualify at Atlanta, while Kulwicki qualified the unsponsored No. 7 on the pole. Hooters approached him for a one-race deal, and Kulwicki finished eighth that day.
Shortly afterwards both sides agreed to a long-term sponsorship. Kulwicki finished 14th in the standings that year and won the night race at Bristol, and the team had secure sponsorship again heading into 1992.
What did the 1992 title race look like?
Kulwicki won at Bristol in the spring, and his first superspeedway win came at Pocono in the summer. He challenged Davey Allison and Bill Elliott for most of the season, while both rivals suffered mechanical issues and accidents. Entering the finale at Atlanta, Kulwicki trailed Allison by thirty points.
Kulwicki was the underdog that afternoon, and Kyle Petty, Harry Gant and Mark Martin were also mathematically eligible. He obtained permission from NASCAR and Ford to cover the first two letters of the car's grille branding, which made it read Underbird. Allison crashed on lap 254 and suffered severe damage, leaving Kulwicki and Elliott to decide the title.
Kulwicki had been battling gearbox issues all day, but he took the five-point bonus for leading the most laps and finished second behind the race-winning Elliott. That was enough to take the championship, and it made him the first owner-driver to win a title since Richard Petty, who won his final championship in 1979 and made his last start that same afternoon.
What happened in the 1993 season before the crash?
Kulwicki started 1993 with three top tens and two top fives, two of them on the short tracks of Rockingham and Richmond. He finished 26th in the Daytona 500 after falling three laps down, and he finished 36th at Atlanta when the Underbird car crashed out. The team finished sixth at Darlington before heading to Bristol.
What happened on 1 April 1993?
On Thursday, 1 April, Kulwicki was returning from a promotional appearance at a Hooters restaurant in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was scheduled to fly to Tri-Cities Regional Airport in Blountville that night, and he boarded a Swearingen Merlin III twin-engine turboprop, which Hooters owner Bob Brooks had leased to him. Two Hooters executives were on the flight too.
The plane departed Knoxville at 8:58 PM local time. Radio contact was lost soon after, and the aircraft dropped rapidly, and investigators later linked the descent to icing that shut down its engines. It crashed and burst into flames nearly six miles from the airport, killing Kulwicki and the three others on board.
Who ran AK Racing after Kulwicki's death?
Kulwicki left the team to his father, Gerald, who had no interest in running it. Felix Sabates, who owned Team SABCO, held the team in trust while a buyer was sought. Crew chief Paul Andrews and the crew said they would keep working as Kulwicki would have wanted, and the shop reopened the day after Bristol.
Sabates received several offers, but some buyers were interested only in the race shop property. Four Winston Cup drivers, Bill Elliott, Ricky Rudd, Geoff Bodine and Brett Bodine, wanted to form owner-driver operations of their own, and Sabates heard from each of them.
Why did Hooters leave the team?
Hooters had been in a dispute with Sabates over who would replace Kulwicki. Its executives wanted Loy Allen Jr. in the No. 7, which Sabates refused, and Hooters argued that its contract gave it approval rights over drivers. Sabates said the contract allowed only reasonable refusal of candidates.
Sabates also pointed to his own rookie, Kenny Wallace, who had spent years in lower tier series. He said Allen was not yet able to meet the standards Kulwicki had set. When Hooters suggested the team shut down for the rest of the year, Sabates refused, because doing so would have forfeited $200,000 in appearance fees. The executives also rejected the four drivers as poor brand representatives.
He had also tried to persuade Anheuser-Busch to shift its Budweiser backing from Junior Johnson's car to his for 1994 onward. Hooters announced that it would pull its sponsorship after Bristol on 12 April. Sabates learned of the decision through a local reporter, and he said it had a significant impact on the team's value. Rudd withdrew his interest as a result, and the team returned at North Wilkesboro a week early with sponsorship from Bojangles Fried Chicken.
How did Geoff Bodine take over the team?
On 12 May 1993 Geoff Bodine was announced as the winning bidder. He brought in The Family Channel as primary sponsor for most of the remaining races, and he also secured backing from the U.S. bobsled team for a few events. Matchbox Toys, Hanes, Purolator Filters, Cellular One and the Carolina Opry also sponsored rounds that year.
Bodine kept driving his own No. 15 for Bud Moore while running AK Racing day to day. Jimmy Hensley drove the No. 7 through the fall race at Richmond, and Tommy Kendall drove at Sears Point and Watkins Glen. The 1993 Hooters 500 was the last race the team ran as AK Racing.
What happened to the team after 1993?
Bodine renamed the team Geoff Bodine Racing for 1994, and Exide sponsored him for two years. The Family Channel moved over to Roush Racing to back Ted Musgrave in the No. 16 Ford. He recorded three victories that season, but inconsistency left him 17th in the final standings. Bodine ran it until 1997, then sold the business to Jim Mattei, the founder of Checkers Drive-In.
The team changed hands again in 2000, when Jim Smith bought it and merged it with his Ultra Motorsports operation. In 2005 Robby Gordon bought the team and renamed it Robby Gordon Motorsports, running it as an owner-driver until he shut down his NASCAR operations in 2012.
Where did the team's people and rivals end up?
Paul Andrews stayed with the No. 7 until the end of 1996, then became crew chief for Jeremy Mayfield's car and later worked for Dale Earnhardt. Ricky Rudd ran his own owner-driver team until 1999, then drove for Robert Yates Racing from 2000 to 2002.
Brett Bodine took the No. 11 for Junior Johnson in 1995 and later started Brett Bodine Racing. Bill Elliott bought into Charles Hardy's team in 1995 and fielded the No. 94 Ford until the end of 2000.
