Born in 91 so this was before my time, but man I love going back and watching races from this era. Cars could actually get near each other without getting aero loose, makes for much better racing than we have now
1.5ish mile tracks really depend on the generation of car as to how good the racing will be. of course, how the track was made also has quite abit to doing with it. then again, that types of track was always better to race with Indycars then stock cars.
It sucks Chicagoland wasn't an exciting track but it was cool to see the top series a couple times and the Xfinity series again. I remember there was one caution one year probably for debris.
I believe there should have been Jerry Punch t-shirts sold by NASCAR. That dude was an institution within this old school NASCAR. He's saved several people's lives just being a doctor within the pits. The fact that he never turned a lap in racing history should not exclude him from being part of the Nascar Hall of Fame.
i was born in 86. my pops was a big fan. he passed in 2014. watched a lot of racing with him. i watched dale sr.'s final race with him. its been awesome to re watch races i cant remember. thank you.
Nice, I was born in 87 and my pops passed in 2018. We watched many NASCAR races, even got to see all 3 series live more than once. We also went to countless short track races at about 20 different tracks between dirt, asphalt and drag strips. The NASCAR races we've seen were at Chicagoland and Milwaukee. My kids love the tracks now too.
I was there that day. Living equal distance between Rockingham, Darlington and Charlotte I went to a lot of races. Made a few trips to North Wilkesboro and Talledega also.
Ah, the era of “my eyeball is popping out of my head, my ribs are broken, my wrist is shattered, I’ve got a TBI, and my femur is sticking through my thigh, but I’ve been cleared to drive” of NASCAR.
Rockingham and that famous turn 2 along with all that sand in the asphalt would wear some tires quick! Miss these days so so so much, this is holy ground for me
Nascar started going downhill when they took these tracks, North Wilksbo. And building cookie cut 1.5 tracks with no character. Changing the points system and dividing the race into stages i cant watch it anymore
one great race track was at this race and attended both races every year and pit crew championships. loved seeing the Flying Aces win 4 in a row. Got to see Dale win in 96 and helped pushed his car into victory lane. Used to be 500 laps until Rusty and Penske were constantly whining about 500 lappers or mile races (since they kept blowing up engines) and couldn't beat Earnhardt until Nascar changed the races to 400's.
Bill was running last years Thunderbird. Bill, along with many of the other Ford driver's, thought it was a better piece. I thought the same thing, just seeing the cars side by side. Ford however frowned on running last years bodystyle, when they were campaigning an all-new car, and naturally so. 👍 🇺🇲
Lap 370 is why Ricky Rudd wrecked Dale Earnhardt at North Wilkesboro later that year when they were racing for the lead on the last lap. The points lost by Earnhardt in that Wilkesboro race allowed Rusty Wallace to win the Winston Cup Points Championship in 1989, I think I remember...lol
yeah you're correct, Ricky Rudd talked about that on that Dale Jr podcast a few years back, apparently it was a "payback" situation from the previous year if I remember what he said on the podcast, it's on youtube somewhere
Especially when politically correct 'I'm offended' special interest groups didn't have a influence on nascar..... sad seeing sports these days taking all the fun and entertainment away due to the 'I'm offended' special interests groups
@@richardrobinson9814what's funny is if they're not fans anyways why does it matter what they're offended by ya know? Like NASCAR would have been cancelled, now look at it.
@2:48:19 ol harry gant, (from my hometown, taylorsville nc) never sugar coated or ranted and raved. he just buried you matter-of-factly. "after, you know, earnhardt crashed ricky..."
Frankly i love litterally the car " the Buick Regal " of Larry Pearson this paint scheme was cool and the buick at the time was very so badass , the front car i loved "the noise of car "really !
They always scheduled rockingham at the worst times. We always have terrible weather here in February and November. Then they wonder why there was so many empty seats. It’s either 30 degrees or pouring rain here when they came. Every race I went to at the rock I either froze to death or had to miss a day of work on Monday for a rain delay.
@@CJODell12 Kinda a stupid thing to say... there are tons of people (including me) who couldn't watch these races back then or weren't even alive. And at least for me it's incredibly important not to know the winner in advance. It's not your fault that some people get spoiled by your comment but yeah, not really the smartest thing to say.
I have to wonder how many people watching this nowadays know what they're talking about when the announcers mention adjusting the stagger on a car. That's something really unique to old school oval track racing. If you don't know, stagger refers to putting slightly larger tires on the right side of the car to make it naturally want to turn left. It fell out of favor in the '90s when they developed the ability to adjust the suspension through the rear window, which is a lot quicker and more precise.
Mr Benny had a challenge for all the pit crew in his later days. Once he got on TV he decided a challenge for all pit crews to beat a certain time for any team or stop. I'd like to follow through with his challenge in his name somehow
One interesting note about this race was the fact that, in the first year they had the rolling bonus of $7,600 per race for a driver winning a race from the pole position, this race marked the only time it was won the entire year. The next time it was won would be this race a year later, and since it had not been won since this very race, it resulted in Kyle Petty cleaning up to the tune of what was, at the time, the biggest payday for a victory in a single race in the history of the sport (not including Bill Elliott winning the Winston Million in 1985).
Ricky Rudd and Harry Gant had the cars to beat in this race, but you wouldn't know it from the result. I never hear people mention this wreck when they talk about Dale racing dirty and they didn't bring it up the next week in the broadcast, but this is one of the worst examples of him wrecking someone I've seen. Dale's car wasn't good, he had no chance of winning (without taking out the best cars), but he f*cks with the leaders after several restarts, almost wrecks them at 2:39:50 and finally takes Ricky out at 2:42:15, for no reason. It was nice to hear Harry call it what it was at 2:48:25. I feel like this one is worse than most of his because he'd usually just square someone up with his bumper, not right rear you into the wall (although that's what he did to DW too). Ricky did a hell of a job to save it.
Yeah I have to agree. I was a Dale Earnhardt fan but he did some very harsh and foolish things at times. This very early season wreck is why Ricky Rudd didn't cut Dale any slack later this season at North Wilkesboro. And Ricky was right in not cutting any slack. And candidly Dale drove right down on Ricky's door going into turn 1 at North Wilkesboro too. Dale Jr said that too on his podcast.
@@bradleyhudgins1005 He was tons of fun to watch lol. I felt like this one was bad even for him. He was a savant on the track and I think sometimes he just got bored.
I had to keep watching the replay and I'm not so sure that Ricky didn't make the initial contact on Dale's left, rear corner, that got Dale loose, when Ricky dove down in the corner. Ricky seemed to go into that corner a bit hot too, but maybe Dale decided to slow considerably Idk. Rusty was right there in the perfect spot and was asked about it on the radio by the commentators and he called it 2 guys going for the sme spot. Dale was notorious for nudging a car out of the way or just outright wrecking a car (ie. Labonte twice at Bristol) and because he is Dale Earnhardt he's always believed to have full control of his car like no one else. So any incident he ever had, its almost automatic to say it was intentional.
One of the great broadcast teams in NASCAR history. When NBC got partial broadcast rights in 2001 they should have hired Bob Jenkins to work with Benny Parsons. Fox did the right thing bringing Mike Joy over from CBS. Bob Jenkins should have been NBC's man.
i love the car of darrel waltrip of 1988 years, chevrolet aero TIDE i love clearly. The cars Coors #9 red and white and the kulwicki car whithe and blue & red line is cool with ZEREX SPONSOR also the BUD car also
Also of note: what exactly is Elliott driving? It looks like it's some combination of an '88/'89 Thunderbird. I know he ran a clear '88 model at spring Bristol and Sears Point (maybe the Glen too?) in 1989 as a cost saving measure (a lot of teams did that back then). With that said, the Thunderbird in this race looks extremely "unique"....
@@josephscott6388 The body style doesn't really matter on a short track. Aerodynamics aren't a factor on a short track, so why waste money on running the latest model if you have a perfectly good last year's model that will work?🤷♂️
@@josephscott6388 Yeah, he finished 2nd in the '83 Daytona 500 in the "shoebox." Not sure if you're knocking the Elliott's, but many layers to peal back how the "backwoods " Elliotts came to out perform all the Ford teams, much less the well financed GM teams.
Bill wasn't running this car as as cost saving move it was cause the defending cup champion had a horrible start to the 89 season. An they tore up all their 89 tbirds an didn't have a choice but run the 88 car
first thing i noticed , shot in car of davey allison and then mention of a helicopter above, then i noticed theres no pit road speed, third ... how shitty one of the jacks performed and how many pumps to jack the car up, then how inconsistant the tire guy was in respect to how quick some lugs came off, seemed like the first two lugs were slow motion then he would hit the last few super fast, all my heros are in this race, so cool
haha yeah a fast pit stop around this time was like 22-25 seconds. Around 1993 is when they started getting fast, 4 tire stops at 16 seconds. I remember them bragging about Kyle Pettys crew laying down a 4 tire change in 20 seconds and nobody could believe it sometime between 1990-1992 because he got off the backstretch running up front and back then pitting on the backstretch was a major disadvantage
I'd bet he wish he was the second one to win the 76 challenge... Like Kyle Petty when it was like $228,000 dollars a year later. Sometimes first is worst ... .
Born in 91 so this was before my time, but man I love going back and watching races from this era. Cars could actually get near each other without getting aero loose, makes for much better racing than we have now
Same
This has to be THE best era of NASCAR... Where are all these cars now??? Hope that some of them were saved!!!!
Love the video. Wish we still had the Rock on the circuit. So much better than those newer cookie cutter 1.5 -2.0 tracks.
1.5ish mile tracks really depend on the generation of car as to how good the racing will be. of course, how the track was made also has quite abit to doing with it. then again, that types of track was always better to race with Indycars then stock cars.
Look at the shape of Rockingham... It's literally a 1mi version of the trioval tracks...
@@brianmurray7980 wish Indycars had ever went to the rock. would've been crazy to seeing.
It sucks Chicagoland wasn't an exciting track but it was cool to see the top series a couple times and the Xfinity series again. I remember there was one caution one year probably for debris.
I believe there should have been Jerry Punch t-shirts sold by NASCAR. That dude was an institution within this old school NASCAR. He's saved several people's lives just being a doctor within the pits. The fact that he never turned a lap in racing history should not exclude him from being part of the Nascar Hall of Fame.
Absolutely!!
i was born in 86. my pops was a big fan. he passed in 2014. watched a lot of racing with him. i watched dale sr.'s final race with him. its been awesome to re watch races i cant remember. thank you.
Nice, I was born in 87 and my pops passed in 2018. We watched many NASCAR races, even got to see all 3 series live more than once. We also went to countless short track races at about 20 different tracks between dirt, asphalt and drag strips. The NASCAR races we've seen were at Chicagoland and Milwaukee. My kids love the tracks now too.
I miss The Rock.
There in 1988
They should open up a lot of the smaller tracks the have ruined Nascar really bad
This is the best era of nascar. Where drivers were actual gear heads and wrench turners,not spoiled little rich kids.
I love the 80s racing some of the 90s wasn't to bad
I was there that day. Living equal distance between Rockingham, Darlington and Charlotte I went to a lot of races. Made a few trips to North Wilkesboro and Talledega also.
Awesome comment. it's great living in NC and being big nascar fan with those tracks nearby seeing all those races. Lil chill drive and your their 🔥
I miss Davey, Alan, and Dale.
Neil Bonnet and Benny Parsons too!
Dad
Im sure they're still racing and trading rubber somewhere buddy 🤘
@@elisebastian153 atleast trading stories. Raise hell, praise Dale.
Me too
What a great track I miss NASCAR
Ah, the era of “my eyeball is popping out of my head, my ribs are broken, my wrist is shattered, I’ve got a TBI, and my femur is sticking through my thigh, but I’ve been cleared to drive” of NASCAR.
Won't forget attending this race. I was in Charlotte as the cars hit the track and was in my seat in Rockingham as they went full green.
The quality of this recording is awesome! I vividly remember when Elliott broke his wrist and Ridley subbing.
Man, G Bodine was really underrated! All these old races have a few guys always up front, Earnhardt, Bodine, DW and Rusty always seem to be involved.
This is the racing I miss, pontiac, Oldsmobile Drivers were Gentlemen not not whiny babies in cookie cutter cars
The world was awesome in 1989.
I was 6 when I watched this race live in 89.... I miss those days!
So many memories. Thank you for uploading this! Takes me back to when I was just a kid! These were the days!
The start of a great era with BP joining Ned and Bob.
Nascar on Espn's 3 amigos
The audio quality is strangely soothing , like a train horn sounding quietly in the distance at night
Rockingham and that famous turn 2 along with all that sand in the asphalt would wear some tires quick! Miss these days so so so much, this is holy ground for me
Nascar started going downhill when they took these tracks, North Wilksbo. And building cookie cut 1.5 tracks with no character. Changing the points system and dividing the race into stages i cant watch it anymore
one great race track
was at this race and attended both races every year and pit crew championships.
loved seeing the Flying Aces win 4 in a row.
Got to see Dale win in 96 and helped pushed his car into victory lane.
Used to be 500 laps until Rusty and Penske were constantly whining about 500 lappers or mile races (since they kept blowing up engines) and couldn't beat Earnhardt until Nascar changed the races to 400's.
Really? Interesting. Dale was a champ!!
Bill was running last years Thunderbird.
Bill, along with many of the other Ford driver's, thought it was a better piece.
I thought the same thing, just seeing the cars side by side.
Ford however frowned on running last years bodystyle, when they were campaigning an all-new car, and naturally so. 👍 🇺🇲
Went to my first race 1989 August mis, 19 in a row infield after. Loved the party
so you got to see davey allison win some. I went to a ton and never got to see him win in person. I envy you.
Love watching these old races
Lap 370 is why Ricky Rudd wrecked Dale Earnhardt at North Wilkesboro later that year when they were racing for the lead on the last lap.
The points lost by Earnhardt in that Wilkesboro race allowed Rusty Wallace to win the Winston Cup Points Championship in 1989, I think I remember...lol
yeah you're correct, Ricky Rudd talked about that on that Dale Jr podcast a few years back, apparently it was a "payback" situation from the previous year if I remember what he said on the podcast, it's on youtube somewhere
th-cam.com/video/5DDsESz1m5U/w-d-xo.html here it is
that's one of the more blatant Earnhardt wrecks, and he's a lap down there
@@cnking27 just shows how great Dale was. He’s still making the crybabies squall
@@billfold1717 I doubt that's what he wanted to be remembered for, but get your kicks any way you can I guess
when NASCAR was worth watching
Especially when politically correct 'I'm offended' special interest groups didn't have a influence on nascar..... sad seeing sports these days taking all the fun and entertainment away due to the 'I'm offended' special interests groups
@@richardrobinson9814what's funny is if they're not fans anyways why does it matter what they're offended by ya know? Like NASCAR would have been cancelled, now look at it.
I miss Rockingham..Very nice folks there..Jesse's was a hotspot quick stop on the way to the track.
i am old . i was at that race in March 1989. my car battery died in the parking lot after the race
Well at least it was after, how did that work out?
@@Scarecrow-skate-racing-videos it was a 4 spd people help me roll it off
What caused the battery to go flat?
@@Animal_lives_matter i'm not sure
@2:48:19 ol harry gant, (from my hometown, taylorsville nc) never sugar coated or ranted and raved. he just buried you matter-of-factly. "after, you know, earnhardt crashed ricky..."
This age of Nascar was great. It sucks now. Haven't watched a race in about ten years.
You knew it was a different time when the NASCAR official is smoking while waiting for things to get going.
@@essbe7158 Good times
Frankly i love litterally the car " the Buick Regal " of Larry Pearson this paint scheme was cool and the buick at the time was very so badass , the front car i loved "the noise of car "really !
They always scheduled rockingham at the worst times. We always have terrible weather here in February and November. Then they wonder why there was so many empty seats. It’s either 30 degrees or pouring rain here when they came. Every race I went to at the rock I either froze to death or had to miss a day of work on Monday for a rain delay.
I attended this race with my wife. She was 8-months pregnant. 😀
BP telling the Harry Hyde (Harry Hogge) Days Of Thunder ice cream story.
Rusty Wallace’s first out of six total wins of the 1989 season. He would beat Dale Earnhardt Sr for the 1989 Winston Cup title by a mere 12 points.
Thanks butthole!
@@whiteymanngogh4489 What?
@@CJODell12 thanks for posting the winner.
@@whiteymanngogh4489 Sorry for posting the winner to a race that happened over 30 years ago.
@@CJODell12 Kinda a stupid thing to say... there are tons of people (including me) who couldn't watch these races back then or weren't even alive. And at least for me it's incredibly important not to know the winner in advance. It's not your fault that some people get spoiled by your comment but yeah, not really the smartest thing to say.
I have to wonder how many people watching this nowadays know what they're talking about when the announcers mention adjusting the stagger on a car. That's something really unique to old school oval track racing.
If you don't know, stagger refers to putting slightly larger tires on the right side of the car to make it naturally want to turn left. It fell out of favor in the '90s when they developed the ability to adjust the suspension through the rear window, which is a lot quicker and more precise.
This is how I watch these old races I never got to see as a kid , no cable 1 TV and parents win who get to watch what.
Miss those 500 milers at Rockingham and Dover...
I wanna get into a time machine and never leave the 90’s!! Can you imagine not having to witness the bullshit in today’s society!!!!!🙄🙄
Mr Benny had a challenge for all the pit crew in his later days. Once he got on TV he decided a challenge for all pit crews to beat a certain time for any team or stop.
I'd like to follow through with his challenge in his name somehow
29 races man what a time
Good quality video for it's age compared to many other vintage races.
Miss these guys!
NASCAR was so much better in the 80s
26:31 proper race start
This was the first live race I ever watched, Rusty Wallace won it and I became a fan until he retired.
Dammit. Now I remember why i never read the comments before watching the race
Always my favorite as well. Racing isn't the same anymore....
Ricky Rudd literally drove the wheels off his car!!!
9 months later Steven was born lmao
Legit?!?
One interesting note about this race was the fact that, in the first year they had the rolling bonus of $7,600 per race for a driver winning a race from the pole position, this race marked the only time it was won the entire year. The next time it was won would be this race a year later, and since it had not been won since this very race, it resulted in Kyle Petty cleaning up to the tune of what was, at the time, the biggest payday for a victory in a single race in the history of the sport (not including Bill Elliott winning the Winston Million in 1985).
Bob Jenkins! I miss him on tv
Ricky Rudd and Harry Gant had the cars to beat in this race, but you wouldn't know it from the result. I never hear people mention this wreck when they talk about Dale racing dirty and they didn't bring it up the next week in the broadcast, but this is one of the worst examples of him wrecking someone I've seen. Dale's car wasn't good, he had no chance of winning (without taking out the best cars), but he f*cks with the leaders after several restarts, almost wrecks them at 2:39:50 and finally takes Ricky out at 2:42:15, for no reason. It was nice to hear Harry call it what it was at 2:48:25. I feel like this one is worse than most of his because he'd usually just square someone up with his bumper, not right rear you into the wall (although that's what he did to DW too). Ricky did a hell of a job to save it.
Yeah I have to agree. I was a Dale Earnhardt fan but he did some very harsh and foolish things at times. This very early season wreck is why Ricky Rudd didn't cut Dale any slack later this season at North Wilkesboro. And Ricky was right in not cutting any slack. And candidly Dale drove right down on Ricky's door going into turn 1 at North Wilkesboro too. Dale Jr said that too on his podcast.
@@bradleyhudgins1005 He was tons of fun to watch lol. I felt like this one was bad even for him. He was a savant on the track and I think sometimes he just got bored.
I had to keep watching the replay and I'm not so sure that Ricky didn't make the initial contact on Dale's left, rear corner, that got Dale loose, when Ricky dove down in the corner. Ricky seemed to go into that corner a bit hot too, but maybe Dale decided to slow considerably Idk. Rusty was right there in the perfect spot and was asked about it on the radio by the commentators and he called it 2 guys going for the sme spot.
Dale was notorious for nudging a car out of the way or just outright wrecking a car (ie. Labonte twice at Bristol) and because he is Dale Earnhardt he's always believed to have full control of his car like no one else. So any incident he ever had, its almost automatic to say it was intentional.
What about intentionally hitting the 27 on the last pit stop?
Man, Bill Elliott has a serious twang on his voice....lol.
One of the great broadcast teams in NASCAR history. When NBC got partial broadcast rights in 2001 they should have hired Bob Jenkins to work with Benny Parsons. Fox did the right thing bringing Mike Joy over from CBS. Bob Jenkins should have been NBC's man.
Q: Do you have any advice on how to win here at North Carolina?
A: Yeah, go fast and turn left.
2:54:45 BP telling a story used in Days of Thunder
10:45 Way before Go-Pro was conceived. This technology is used today with police officers.
K
Oh looky here...an Elliot in a cast 34 yrs ago.. how about that. Both had their accidents at the start of the season.
That was a awesome day that day..
Rip Bob Jenkins
They should have never changed the configuration of this track. This is Racing
i love the car of darrel waltrip of 1988 years, chevrolet aero TIDE i love clearly.
The cars Coors #9 red and white and the kulwicki car whithe and blue & red line is cool with ZEREX SPONSOR also the BUD car also
great lineup
Did Chevy run 2 different cars for teams that year? I saw the one of Dale in a Lumina at Pocono, and then.. A Monte Carlo here?
They started the year with the Monte Carlos and began running the Luminas at the Talladega Spring race
Miss this good simple racing!
Also of note: what exactly is Elliott driving? It looks like it's some combination of an '88/'89 Thunderbird. I know he ran a clear '88 model at spring Bristol and Sears Point (maybe the Glen too?) in 1989 as a cost saving measure (a lot of teams did that back then). With that said, the Thunderbird in this race looks extremely "unique"....
That's an 1988 body style. Rules were that they could run a body style that was up to 2 years old.
the elliotts were inveterate late adapters. they were the last ford team to shift to the 83 thundebird too.
@@josephscott6388 The body style doesn't really matter on a short track. Aerodynamics aren't a factor on a short track, so why waste money on running the latest model if you have a perfectly good last year's model that will work?🤷♂️
@@josephscott6388
Yeah, he finished 2nd in the '83 Daytona 500 in the "shoebox."
Not sure if you're knocking the Elliott's, but many layers to peal back how the "backwoods " Elliotts came to out perform all the Ford teams, much less the well financed GM teams.
Bill wasn't running this car as as cost saving move it was cause the defending cup champion had a horrible start to the 89 season. An they tore up all their 89 tbirds an didn't have a choice but run the 88 car
That is a bad ass track
first thing i noticed , shot in car of davey allison and then mention of a helicopter above, then i noticed theres no pit road speed, third ... how shitty one of the jacks performed and how many pumps to jack the car up, then how inconsistant the tire guy was in respect to how quick some lugs came off, seemed like the first two lugs were slow motion then he would hit the last few super fast, all my heros are in this race, so cool
haha yeah a fast pit stop around this time was like 22-25 seconds. Around 1993 is when they started getting fast, 4 tire stops at 16 seconds. I remember them bragging about Kyle Pettys crew laying down a 4 tire change in 20 seconds and nobody could believe it sometime between 1990-1992 because he got off the backstretch running up front and back then pitting on the backstretch was a major disadvantage
I don't remember Elliott running the '88 body style in the '89 season?!
Fairly typical for the 9 team. I remember they ran the '82 T-Bird bodies a few times in '83, as well.
ever thought about running it through a ai upscaler?
Not gonna lie, I know what you're talking about but I don't have a clue how to go about it. But not unwilling to try lol
I can picture the race being called the warrior 500 for some reason
Bring back the Rock
6:15 "car number 95 ? Of sterling marlin "
Good race
I love the 90s and dale Earnhardt couldn't stand jeff gordon also miss ned benny and bob
2:54:16
Rusty Wallace becomes the 1st driver to win the Unocal 76 challenge
I didn't know that was it the only time he did that
@@michaellowder9176 he won from the pole a few times, he did it twice at Bristol off the top of my head in 91 and 93
I'd bet he wish he was the second one to win the 76 challenge... Like Kyle Petty when it was like $228,000 dollars a year later.
Sometimes first is worst ... .
Rusty had to be illegal that day.
Do it For Elvis/Harra and Dale
The Rock?
Bruton Smith was so terrible for nascar……
You got that right...
Before boy buns and skinny jeans 👖🤪
I wish they still told what todays prima donnas made we would all shit im sure
Another race where Earnhardt was a jerk. He'd be mad if someone did that to him. I would have punted him.
Dale makes me sick
Me to go Rusty
🤣🤣 cry 😢 baby's 😢 😁
Earnhardt sr was a dirty racer always knocking people out of the race to win......surprised he never killed anybody
Ricky got him back at North Wilkesboro.
Racing ended when street cars were no longer race cars
Had a pit pass, I touched that car.
I miss the Rock,Dale,Davey and Alan