Bill Elliott: Racing Into History

[Music] hmm [Music] bill elliot is a very successful banker [Music] and he's not half bad on the straightaways either bill elliott and coors a couple of american originals [Music] the north carolina motor speedway rockingham a track with many historic moments in 1965 curtis turner won the first race year and in 1973 i clinched the winston cup championship year that's certainly a race i'll never forget but in 1976 in the carolina 500 fans were going to witness the start of one of sport's most amazing stories as we look at the starting lineup that day we see dave marcus on the pole in the k k dodge there's buddy baker richard petty david pearson even old bp starting seventh next to kale yarborough as we scan down the lineup there's a name we haven't seen before back in row 17 number nine bill elliott from georgia in a ford bill would only make 32 laps that day before dropping out with a broken oil pump now his car is owned by an oil pump manufacturer he finished 33rd that day earned 640 dollars but little did anyone realize we were watching one of sports amazing stories bill elliott has gone racing into history [Music] bill elliott's first pole win came in his 57th start at garland in april of 1981. bill's first win came at riverside in november of 1983 in his 116th career start but his big payday came in 1985. bill elliott is going toward immortality bill elliot gets the checkered flag bill elliot has won an additional 1 million dollars in 1985. 85 was such a letdown as far as what we tried to do and and what went on that year but i think our i think 85 would have really been overshadowed if i'd have been up here then i'm just truly proud to be up here tonight and be a proud of winston cup racing and i thank you very much thank you guys [Applause] it's february 29 1976 your first winston cup race do you remember anything about that day i was a little green [Laughter] needless to say a lot uh you know we'd been to atlanta and we didn't make the race we came to rockingham and we thought well you know there probably wouldn't be as many cars and rockinghams would be in atlanta we'd have a better chance to make the race so that was when they had uh three-day qualifying they qualified on thursday friday and then saturday they took six cars it started 36 cars so we missed it the first day we missed the second day and the third day there were several cars running and we ran well enough to be 33rd so we felt like we were you know just tickled to death and i can remember whenever we went we were so excited about getting in the race you know how you when you qualify you cover up the oil cooler you block all your front end off we forgot don't even even unblock the oil because we were tore up during the race we had to on one of the pit stops we came in and then did the oil cooker but we we didn't run a lot we ended up an oil seal came out of the oil pump it started leaking we end up having to fall out but it was interesting deal how did you did did your father get you started in the racing business well my father had cars and never drove himself just if he'd put a car together have a bunch of guys put a car together and they'd go to dayton and run a sportsman race or they'd run something we spent a lot of money but he never did go anywhere you know they'd run good every now and then and we got some old race cars around there that i couldn't believe anybody but you know at that time you know in the early 60s it was when you'd take a stock car and haul the inside out take all the interior and all the stuff out and put you some roll put your roll cage in it you know when it beef up the suspension and that's the way you go to daytona get you a big engine from somebody and we're ready to go race but it's not like that anymore you how many western cup races had you been to before you went to the race of rockingham didn't go to any only race i can remember going to was atlanta it had been in the late 60s and i can't remember if i was there during the race or after the race and got a car i can't even remember the circumstances but you really were not a winston cup fan until you started driving in winston i went to i remember going to lakewood when it was dirt and it must have been about 68 or 69. when tom pistone and somebody else was racing and one spawn other now i think piston won but it's like i said that's been centuries ago i'm sure you're talking about keeping a race car when you're 16. so race cars has gotten in the way of school back in the in your teens i guess canada does sometimes wish that you'd have spent more time in school less time on the race cars or are you happy the way very happy the way it turned out well i just wish that i would had applied myself a little better you know as far as you know making sure you did the right things when you was in school you know i go sometimes i talk with the kids at school and you know you're trying to tell them something and they say oh he don't know anything you know they got it all figured out but they haven't got anything figured out you know just like we had it all figured out exactly it's the same thing you know times change situations change but it's still basically the same the problems with the society this day and time that there's so much pressure there's so many more things to do and so much emphasis is put on things just like athletic sports you know used to it wasn't so bad if your high school lost the ball game or you know you wasn't that good a player but now you know each high school they push the players they got to be the best you got to be at you your best at everything you do there's a lot of pressure on kids today dawsonville georgia home of the elliots it's a place where kids can grow up without the pressure of the big city life of atlanta only 70 miles to the south hill courthouse stands in the center of town of less than a thousand people that serves as a county seat for dawson county and would you believe there's not a traffic light in the whole county yes the state route was number nine before bill made it famous dawsonville was as well known for its moonshine as for fast drivers in the past and four drivers from this small town won at daytona before bill but they were on the beach course [Music] you know there's no visit to dawsonville complete without stopping by the dawsonville pool room and saying hello to gordon perkle who seems to have a fascination for bill elliott how long have you been keeping up with bill elliott in his racing ventures oh ever since bill started racing where did this quarter panel come from the one with all the paint rubbed off of it this came from charlotte in 1986 the fall race up there over at home bill got in the wall i think bobby helen jr got into the side of him and he scrubbed the wall with that one what about the nose off there that doesn't look too bad this front nose here came uh in 87 up at uh i mean 86 martinsville i think he got into kyle petey on that one now one on the right here is 89. this is the one that came from daytona it was on the car and he busted his wrist in first of the season oh so that would really have some worth one of these days wanted you see how the right side is ground down when the car went down he went into the wall what about you know uh you i see you sell a lot of souvenirs here do you have people stopping in or just just how do you sell all the souvenirs yeah most of it is uh people coming through seeing bill elliot's hometown we've had every state a unit in the nation to sign our register here except hi about 10 or 12 different foreign countries people represented just came by dawsonville to see millionaire bill [Music] during the world 600 in may of 1982 racing fans set up and said hey who's this bill elliott including race winner neil bonnie i'll be the first one to tell you bill ellie's car was exceptionally strong he could snatch me right off the corner and made me have to work awful hard and he did one heck of a job driving the race car we were lucky to win the race richard penny is the leader of bill elliott right behind him here they come toward the fourth turn and the start finish line coming up bill elliott will make one desperate attempt as he goes to the inside richard petty holds him up could you feel the heat of bill elliot on your back bumper toward the end of the race i'm glad he ain't got any got any more uh experience he'd have been a lot tougher i'll tell you that i did everything i could do and i just couldn't do it someday well i'll tell you what it's getting it seems like it's getting farther and farther away how many seconds did you have before you is is that a pre-requirement you just got to run second for a dozen times before you win i don't know it's just something that happens you know you got to put yourself in the position and win and sooner or later it will come along but riverside november 1983 the first time you won you remember that day shoving you out of the way yeah you remember that everybody says i turned you but i don't think i did what mean you didn't well i was so but i'd run good all day and that that was a whole kicker to the whole deal is uh the first time i went to riverside i ran well and like i said earlier 81 we run a few more races in 82 we ran like 20 races you know in 83 we started running all races we had a bunch of cycle plays finishes throughout 83 and then going into riverside i'd run good the time said i did run riverside and we were running real well that day and whenever it was getting down about 10 laps to go and uh seemed like richmond and daryl spun out together they were one of those two were leading and you were third and i was fourth and uh the college came out and when the green came back i got by you and then it started raining with about three laps to go the rest history want to see how bill elliott won the 1988 nascar championship too fast okay here it is in slow motion [Music] bill elliot and coors a couple of american originals hi everyone and welcome to speedweek i'm larry newman and i'm bob jenkins last sunday southern 500 wasn't just another grand national race bill elliott had a chance to win a 1 million dollar bonus and unless you've been cut off from all forms of media by now you know he did it live on espn [Music] one of the biggest stories in auto racing's history bill elliot won the winston million winning this year's southern 500. bill's million-dollar win brought him and poor's national attention that went beyond the normal racing publications check it out sports illustrated darlington it must have some special memories for you after 1985 and walking away here with a million-dollar bonus well you know going into that race it's you always hope and dream things that turn out the way they should especially on race day you know you've been in enough races to know that anything can go wrong and sometimes usually does you know for me darlington was a place that as far as fighting odds it was probably odd's own worst place you could absolutely go to to run for the million dollars and we felt like as far as trying to to clinch it charlotte would have been have been the better place but we missed it there you know and then all that followed us from charlotte right into darlington but at darlington we were able to handle a lot better we worked very hard on the car making sure that it was right for this particular race and we came in here we sat on the pole and it wasn't as hectic as the the prior race going as charlotte was but still yet it was a situation that we did everything right and we came out on top and you know all the circumstances that went on that day was probably the most memorable part of the whole deal let me ask you and i know there had to be moments in that day that your heart just literally jumped up in your throat like i know when kale blew the power steering hose what did you think when you ran in that smoke well about the same thing i thought a couple years before that kale was driving to monte carlo at that time he blew up on into turn three and they didn't quite catch a caution quick enough and i ran into oil about toward the third quarter turn wall down and i thought the similar things was going to happen and immediately when it started smoking i turned left and came across the apron and came out on top but you know still the situations like that stand in your mind and i knew that all i had to do was hold him off the last several rates several laps of the race he didn't have any power steering so you know it turned out to be an okay day but but the main thing of it is we we stood up under the pressure we did what we needed to do and still yet we won the race and what a year 1985 was did you ever believe that you could have a year like that well you know i can remember sitting in new york at the banquet in 84 and they were announcing all this money million dollars if you win three out of the big four races you know and all this stuff and i thought you know boy that gee that's nice but you know whom i went i've never won a dayton i've never won a lot of places they ended up winning that but you know the year started out and you were just jacked the bear all of a sudden and ended up and it's hard to put your finger on it you you go through years since and you have a down year and you can't really get everything going just right and you can't really put your finger on you can't buy a win but then some days they just come along like nothing to it now i mean it's been four years the statue of limitations has run out whatever you were doing but just confess to us what little something did you have that no one else had in 1985 nothing oh come on now i couldn't tell you if i i didn't know what the other guy's had so like you know but you must have been fudging just a little bit we're probably more legal a lot of the guys were oh that's probably what it was we were too legal didn't know any better i didn't know any better but the winston million you you won the million but it almost destroyed the team didn't it well i think all the things that happened that year ended up being a negative as far as us personally the stress you put on we'd been working a lot of hours over a few guys there that was probably the biggest help we had we were kind of like a quickie or something like that that had you know a few people and the fewer people he got the fewer problems she got because there's lack of there's not that lack of communications between people thinking somebody else did something or somebody else didn't do something but looking back on that you you tried to make things work right each and every race and we were working night and day doing everything we could right i think we ended up just burning ourselves up and then that uh began to come a negative before the end of the season you know you were you know you sure it was nice to win but then you were tired of the deal but uh going into darlington it was the situation from from 101 to holiday going into charlotte you know for the the first time i'd run for the million i mean it was a total disaster you know you couldn't move you couldn't work on a race car and say i was devoting so much time to race car you know now you're having to do other stuff and i couldn't deal with it you know it was just a situation that was taking you away from the race car and as as time went on there you kind of got things put back together and we did well enough to win darlington and it was just a situation that we we organized things well and they worked but you know all in all as far as the inside going into that it's tough to deal with but then you won that battle but for the championship you lost the war and what i meant was at southern 500 you you peaked too soon you said we've won we won a million dollars but then there was a letdown it wasn't that it was so you know go to martinsville i was running fifth in the race pretty late in the race go down in the third turn somebody behind me lost or brakes crash ahead on me drives me into the first turn wall whose fault is that and i was doing what i needed to do go to wiltsboro we had uh some bolts breaking the flywheel you know just something that nobody's thought just happened and there i mean there was nothing that i could do about it with success comes attention if you miss a bill elliott autograph there are five souvenir trailers just outside the tracks where you can pick up a bill elliott souvenir can i help anybody got the elliott coke bottles brand new out in charlotte those are the new coke bottles not every one roofer bill it just seems that way bill five times the fans have voted you the most popular driver now i know that's got to mean a great deal to you it really does you know the and you've been around racing enough and it's tough to be yourself you know all the time you know especially as focused as you have to be you know going into a race or or doing that sort of thing and it's it makes it tough but you know to do that and the fans do like and i think it's a point that you know i wasn't born into this i wasn't you know i was just a kid that grew up working in my father's building supply business and ended up chasing a dream and it came true who's been the people influential people in your career well i think there's been several you know my father made me work hard when i was growing up and you know he wouldn't let us participate in any sports or any of that stuff it's you had to come home and drive a truck or drive forklift or load this or load that or what age you 9 10 years old you know when i was old i was driving a forklift when i was 10 years old and i was driving a truck when i was 13 years old when could you get your license in georgia 16. i was driving a truck on the highway when i was 14 and 15. yeah everybody knew that around dawsonville though right well not the wild not the ones that meant something but you know the again times have changed a lot since that point in time but uh i guess the biggest thing i learned was working hard and you know going at it the best way you know how and you know having good people around me ernie has been very good as far as what he does he gets he gets bent out of shape pretty bad if things don't go right and he's probably the more temperamental one of us as far as uh you know everybody talks about how mean ernie is but there's a good side to him but there's also a very business side to him that he wants to run good no matter what five times billy has been named nascar's most popular driver and fans from all over want to know where does it come from and what makes his cars run so fast this is the coors melon racing complex this is the building that bill and ernie started their racing enterprise back in the 70s both in the same shop building one side working on the race cars ernie on the other side building the engine and then later on bill built the building you see on to the right to work on his race car ernie meanwhile took over the entire shop before the engine shop and bill steadily built the shop built the shop added on until he came out with this building you see in the center that now houses bill elliot's trophy room and souvenir shop and then further on to the right we see the large brown building that's ernie's engine shop that he built about 1986 a fabulous facility and over behind the center shop is the new race car shop or preparation shop that bill just moved into in the summer of 1989 24 000 square feet just to work and maintain a race car and even the small road you see between the buildings that goes back to the elliott airstrip a private airstrip so that they don't have to go to gainesville to fly off they simply go out the backyard welcome to mailing racing there good buddy how long have you been in here about a month just enough to be disorganized and how big is this place 24 000 square feet just to work on a race car well we thought later on we might make men and boys shop out of it have these little rooms i'll show you in a few minutes where the people can go in and change how about showing us around come on show us around here all right i will kind of show you an idea of what we do when we first bring a truck into the shop and uh then we can kind of get an idea of what we're trying to accomplish okay you know the problems we had before was when we brought a car back from a race you know you'd be outside it'd be raining so on and so forth you know it's always a real survey thing when you brought a car in to get it off and out of the truck and in the shop so now we got the truck we just back a truck inside the building and we have the truck in a totally separate area and we got rooms for two truck bays here so we back a truck in and it can be in its own little space we can close it off to where you know for if you don't want to heat it or you don't want to air condition it you don't have to but then we can leave the doors up you know if you do want to heat it or air condition you know when you roll a car in here unload your tires put them on the rack over there back the car right up in there wash it clean it up and uh then roll it around over here where they're working on this other car and go through your setup jack it up then disassemble it you know hopefully it's still in one piece from the race of the previous day now what if you bang the car up do you still go wash it first well you'll still go in there and tear it down or blow the stuff off if it's a basket case we'll just probably roll it in there and then roll it out that door which is that's what goes outside yeah that's a trash pile that's the trash door there so you know or if it's not even in the truck if it's that bad a deal but anyway you know we roll it over here all right then we start we'll we'll check our setup if it's a pretty good deal we'll weigh it and go through the front end and stuff and just see what we can come back from the track right after we come back from the track we'll re-weigh it and just check everything if it's good you'll do that what about if it's bad will you go through that he'll still do it because you want to see what's out you know if you've been in a little deal where you've beaten buying with somebody to see if it's knocked the front end settings off or change something else about the car for example the car we run at martinsville the other week we brought it back in we cleaned it up and brought over here and checked it you know there's a few things off about it then we really got to checking where the steering box is bolted onto the frame when that tire blew out it just about ripped that out of the frame really i'm serious it was unbelievable what it did to it and you wouldn't think anything about it and it went on and finished the race but that's just some of the stuff that does happen that you got to keep the check on you know we've had some stuff i'll show you a little later that where you've gone in and the frames will be cracked a lot like if you run bristol where it's so hard on suspension stuff you'll find a lot of cracks in a lot of different places so you bring the car in and check it out after a race after race that's the most critical time and then still you know once you get to the right back to the racetrack you're constantly checking over everything again anyway to see if it's messed up anything we bring back in here and we redo it pull everything out then we pull everything off then we we take and if a car is not going to run again like say this particular weekend you'll try to disassemble it and that's what all the blue doors are that's our disassembly rooms disassemble rooms like you when you take the merchants of the parts off the race car you put them in a room each each car has a separate room each car has a separate room you know we're not organized yet but that's what our basics are trying to be is you know when we get a particular car we'll just back it up here tear it down and all the stuff goes in that room instead of hunting all over the shop for a particular particular piece that's what our problem was with our other shop it was so small and so disorganized is i built a 5 000 square foot building and i thought well maybe this will be big enough and then the more cars you got and more people you got it wasn't big enough and i kept adding on and i just got in a situation where it was so disorganized because all it was was a bunch i had on then i came in here and we sit down to lay the plants out for this place i got everybody together and say okay what do we need you know when we all talked about it heisted over we needed a centrally located place like for the parts room and where you know our magnaflux and sandblasting machine is where everybody can get to it you know not have it in one corner of a shop you know when in the shop try to get set up to where you have your areas that you don't use the fathers to weigh so and that's and this is what we came up with now you talked a little bit ago about um coming back and checking the car out right and making sure that it's the way it's supposed to be now where is it i mean do you have the infamous black book or is how it's supposed to be is that on computer or in a black book or is it just in your hand just all it is is i when i go to the racetrack i'm looking for a feel you know and you know what i'm talking about because you've driven a race car too and with these particular cars the 89s over the 88s and even the 88s over the 80 models that we used to run the real big cars you can just throw it away because it's worthless you have to start all over again sure you've got the basics that you may have run a uh 350 spring here or 300 there at let's say you go into charlotte you know what your basic setup was there but but these 89 t-birds are so different that you just throw that book away installed all over again huh i mean you don't use it as as this the basis to start with you use it as a basics to start with but the way we what we found out about these things it's not even close you just start all over i mean that's that's the whole point is you know how critical you know is keeping records and what we try to do is we keep lap times of the race whoever was a leader whatever and how quick you run and things of that sort but as far as your setup and what you ran that particular time just for an example if we were to run wiltsboro when it was supposed to run the tire stagger is constant with a radial you've got what you've got it's got no stagger in the rear see so what i might have liked is an inch staggering the reel now i've got to work around that because you have no stagger in the rear and it just causes more problems so the the the lap the person who keeps the the score in your pits that keeps the laps for you is time in your time as well as the leader's time right and writes both those numbers down on the screen so that you'll know how you're stacking up at what point in the race when you change four tires and change the stagger and whatnot right okay and say plus you know the race tracks change some of them get slower some of them get quicker but as far as the rest of the shop it pretty much speaks for itself you know we just we got this on the left here now what's all this about this is just to make headers and stuff like that and we'll just put a dummy motor in a frame you know and it'll it'll rotate and we can just make a set of headers and we've got all of the templates and stuff made where the tailpipes come out where you can kind of get things constant you know because the the thing about a forwards man it's hard to buy stuff readily available most of the stuff you have to make and that's the problems we run into is most of the stuff we do make for example you buy set one set of headers and they might fit in one place you buy another set and they don't come out in the same place then your tailpipes won't work you know when it's just a constant so you make your own headers your basement gebr makes a lot of our stuff but then we have to kind of come in and redo it because the car might have changed we might have changed places you know if you if your engine is a half inch off at one place or another then it might be in the way of one place or if you decided to go from a front a rear steer car to a front steer car who knows you know then you have to redo another set of headers and this is this is a race car fabrication this is where you physically build the frames and what have you is that true well we don't per say build our frames we may start at some point in time i know richard childress and them do but we don't we buy our chassis either from banjo matthews or loblin mike lawful whether it be a front steer or rear steer primarily we'll buy our rear steer stuff from banjo front steer stuff from laughlin so why the surface plate is this well that's you know we can repair our own cars if we get a snout tore up we can cut the front section off that's what we call the front subsection and replace it or if we don't like the way it dries this week we cut it off and move it up or down so this is you have this level place that you can have a place to start and begin plus it's a good way to set your bodies and make sure you got everything good and square and you can square the car up on the thing and then use your grid plates on your surface plate to line everything up and it's just a good neat way to finish your race cars okay now in here is the body shop so we take what you saw in there and then we bring it in here and we've got three bay rooms that we bring the cars into you know hopefully you're not three behind and then paint the cars and it's the dirtier part of the shop so we got it in one corner it's hard to keep a body shot clean so this is where you uh apply the the filler the bondo the filler put the paint on and what right and then whenever it gets done in here we'll turn around and take it right back in there to finish it to bolt the windows and to bolt the suspension under it and then when we get down there we'll go then it'll go back to the setup area so i mean we're constantly trying to do everything i mean it's i think we've got as good a shot probably better than the majority probably one of the best on the circuit as far as i'm concerned what i've built here i don't know anything i really need to do any differently okay what about your parts room what kind of inventory do you have do you have any idea what the inventory is in here dollar figure there's no padding there uh this place is you know harry gets a little excited every now and then what he sees them yeah but uh you know we we have got a lot of inventory here we got a lot of stuff you know it's unbelievable to go over the engine shop see what they've got i mean it's just unbelievable somebody i'll stop here on the side road and we'll show them around through these shops they can't believe they can't believe what you've got here what an investment you've got oh it's a tremendous investment it really is but it that's what it has to you have to have if you're going to compete today but you know still yet looking at raised teams you know you can compete with less than this but it's just like what we experienced in 85 you can burn out you can work 24 hours a day seven days a week but only for so long you know and here we're trying to run it like a business and it's it's gotten to the point that it's extremely hard to look at it like it because it is a seven day a week deal and it's it's hard to work a specific number of hours and you know you try to do the best you can that's why i built this place is to try to help the guys out to have them a nice place to work to come into and it's still tough and folks this is a treat right across the parking lot is ernie elliott's engine shop okay this is where it all starts yeah this is the room that uh basically the engines are started in everything here is very rough it's just like it comes out of the box from forward we pre-assemble the engine with the basic pieces we're going to use to get an idea of what kind of condition the block's in as far as deck heights what kind of clearances it's got basically whether you know when i'm talking about clearances i'm not talking about bearing clearances i'm talking about you know if the crankshaft actually clears the block you know if the camshaft's got a problem sometimes you have a situation where they cast these blocks there may be a little flash and hanging down you don't actually rub the parts so you may you put the engine together here just with just old junk bearings to check everything and make sure everything rotates properly and get your basic clearances and then once you have done that and you've determined it's a good block and it can be used then it's disassembled carried into the grinding room and all this is polished cleaned up all bolt holes are tapped and deburred all oil holes are reamed bait the basic preparation for doing the engine okay now do you do a lot of teams buy the cylinder heads does do you use buy your cylinder heads or do you make your own both you do where's the head room uh this is a headroom next door all the ground all the head grinding is done in there it's all done in this one area okay now oh i see okay now these these are just grinding boots and uh in other words you put a cylinder head on this put a cylinder head on this uh block on this wooden block and you can just throw it around in every direction just have at it and grind away grind away now and then once you grind for a while then you take them to the flow bench and that's the flow bench here and here's where you do you your finished cylinder head work i'll bolt the cylinder head to this part to that surface and blow air through it yeah yeah depends on what you're doing if you're flowing the intake you pull air through it if you're doing the exhaust you blow back through i got you so in other words basically it simulates what the cylinder and the engine would see you're not in a situation that you're trying to blow down through the intake manifold that way you'd be doing everything backwards you're actually doing it you know like the engine was pulling the vacuum on the cylinder once you get that done you take them in to the assembly room and put them together well it depends yeah if they're good you take them in the assembly room if they're bad you take them to the back shelf [Laughter] all right ernie we've worked on the parts unless we're going in the hospital right is this what this is yeah this is a clean area this is where we assemble the motors now what we do in this room this is uh bearing fit this is where we fit the rod and main bearings everything's done in a controlled atmosphere and we use instead of using a mic a standard mic like everybody's used to using we use air gauges which basically has been used in detroit for years and uh you actually fit the size of the bearing by a precise amount of metered air in other words you you take the inside diameter of the connecting rod for instance and take the bearing shell that you would use and put on those air gauges and it would tell you the clearance that you're going to end up with between uh yeah and it's a very precise method because what it does it it eliminates the variances you get in different people using a micrometer because when i use a mic or you use a mic we'll get different numbers but when we use this deal the numbers are all the same all right let's go down through the rest of the hospital wing and what do you do in this room this is engine assembly there's two identical rooms and this is where we assemble this is where we assemble all the all the short blocks and all the complete motors and once they come out of here they go to the gym they go right on the dynamo in other words you sit at the console and use that lever over there and just yeah this is the throttle this is what you throttle it with and everything else is controlled on this dyno automatically you don't have any water controls at all you can run it manually but most everything is done on an automatic test on this particular dyno so all you've got to do is just hit the throttle phone all you do is punch a throttle and punch auto test and that's all you have to do it does rest wow what a piece of equipment and when you're finished it gives you a printout that tells you yeah you get a you get a printout of all the you know all the information that you want it gives you all of the it gives you all the vital statistics of the motor oil pressure oil temperature water temperature fuel temperature air inlet temperature it'll give you so it'll give you all your torque ratings give you your horsepower ratings exhaust temperatures even how much timing you've got in the motor it'll read it out in a number of degrees at each rpm point you know we can record up to with the machine behind you we can record up to like 140 engine functions and we can do that four five six times a second you know the drive line is another integral part of a race car dan elliott does the rear end of transmission work and let's visit with dan and see what he's up to people keeps talking about gear ratio you know we we interview the driver and he'll say i didn't have enough gear or the engine blow up because i had too much gear can you is there any way to explain what they're talking about yeah before the race starts you can only judge and practice what gear ratio you're going to need and you try to there's a certain rpm level that you're trying to achieve for instance in in the bill elliot car what's the magic number 8 7 800 rpm yeah let's say we go to rockingham and we we usually run a 422 gear rocking ham which now 422 gear at rockingham turns what uh anywhere from 7 800 to 8 000 rpms right at the end of the straight peak rpm in the straight way that does that does two things for you that also gives you a boost up off the corner because the higher you can make the straightaway rpms and make the engine live the whole race then when you go down into the corner there's a low rpm that it gets to and that'll be somewhere around 5500 in that range and the higher you can keep it in those areas the better it's going to help you coming off the corner what a great success story the elliott boys have been able to put together in the past few years from this humble beginning to what we've seen in the past few months complete with the convenience of an airport in the backyard and bill still gets a chance to play on two wheels instead of four what did it feel like winning finally winning that winston cup championship it was a great relief as far as what the team said its goals to do over the years and i think if i'd won it in 85 it had been real overshadowed it wouldn't matter as much to me as it did last year and i think you know going to new york with attitude that i had and you know feeling the way you felt about the way or the way everything had gone you know rusty put up a gallon of effort to catch us and you know we ended up uh you know a lot of i got a lot of criticism the way i ran the last race but you know i looked back on that and there was 28 other races that i had to perform very well in to end up putting me in the possession i ran that last racing and i wasn't giving up those other 28 in that last 29 to lose that championship let's take a look back at some of the highlights of the 1988 season here bill elliott and jeff beaudine make contact in bristol bill does a complete 360 and yet goes on to win his first short track victory ever daytona beach florida the firecracker 400 bill starts 38 and comes on to barely beat rick wilson to the start finish line to win darlington south carolina outside of bill's many successes here he holds off his nearest competitor in the point standards rusty wallace to win the southern 500. the scene is set the atlanta journal 500 bill elliott in front of his hometown fans finishes 11th and wins the winston cup championship starting 1989 you're the winston cup champion everything is looking good it's going your way and you go to daytona crash the first day there and break a wrist what were your thoughts about that the only thing i could think of sitting in that car when it slid to a stop was how long am i going to be like out when you knew your wrist was broken i knew it was messed up and i mean there was no doubt about that and that's a big thing in my mind was how long because i knew it was going to be a tough tough to deal with from that point on and that really it has to come in as a champion it's hurt your 89 uh effort a great deal has alright it wiped it out as far as if it hadn't been for the model change you know from 88 to 89 t-bird which was a pretty dramatic change you know and as far as my career has gone i hadn't been through that many great changes and the cars is totally different and we've had to learn a lot about the car i mean it takes a totally different setup than 88 did and having to deal with that you know and not being able to test you know when i could have between the races at the first part of the season because i was messed up it's just been a uphill battle that brings us back to the north carolina motor speedway on sunday bill will once again make an historic start this time we'll ride with bill and listen as elliott's plan their strategy throughout the race bill elliot and 41 other drivers introduced to the sold out crowd in rockingham north carolina the festivities are over it's time that bill crawled in the race car and started thinking about one thing trying to win the ac delco 500. he waved his crew and we see him starting his fourth starting spot behind daryl walter and walter alongside pole shooter alan kowiki all bill elliott is thinking now is how can i get this tours board up front [Applause] you see him moving the car back and forth getting the tires warmed up for that first lap under the green flag and let's listen to the start start in second gear [Applause] third gear now fourth gear and down in turn one behind walter pole shutter kawiki gets the jump and takes the lead on the first corner [Applause] on the brakes hard in turn three already the car is going up the hill further than bill would like for it to [Applause] [Music] even drop it back a few car lengths [Music] daryl walter trying to make a run on kawiki we see bill fighting the car struggling with it early on and there's walters once again looking on the inside of puerto rico going down the front straightaway daryl walter takes the lead and bill elliott closes in right on the buffer of alan koeigle [Music] the wiki's called wigman's badly early [Music] on bill takes a look on the inside of co-ignorance no can't make it this time and here comes dale earnhardt goodwin chevrolet on the inside of bill [Music] behind those two mark martin the blue number six [Music] the poor's crew watches bill and kently down the front straightaway and here mark martin comes alongside bill and by now bill has figured out he's in for a long afternoon at rocky mount [Music] side by side just a few feet from each other as they go through the corner and now it's inches still trying hard not to give up the spot but mark martin takes four spot away [Music] now he's trying to figure out what can i possibly tell the crew what kind of change can we make on the pit stops when we get a chance to change the car and make it better [Applause] [Music] [Applause] on the brakes hard down in turn one let's the car drift up declare already being a problem and it's early early in the race [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] moves along and takes his fight away from bill trouble in the back stretch jerry o'neil spins coming off the second corner [Music] from inside bill elliot's car we see him riding through the blue smoke of gerry o'neil's spin [Applause] this is what elliott has been looking for a caution flag to finally start making some adjustments to the car get on the radio and talk to ernie and tell him what he wants [Applause] about two rounds away from the left two rounds of wedge in the left rear deal eliot seems to think the car is loose the back end trying to go out from under he's going to try to adjust that situation [Music] carr coming down the pit road drives in his pit stall ernie the entire crew waiting on him there's a crew cam with brother dan elliott changing the right front tire tires roll into him picks up the wrench and every tire changes nightmare the lug nuts fell off when he threw the tire up he had to pick up two and put them on with his hand we see the gas man the fella with a helmet puts the wrench on turns two rounds that's mike grant putting in two rounds of wedge in the left rear and bill elliott drives away [Music] picked up 20 pounds of pressure to right front and 15 in the right room did you put two rounds in it got seven left i got somebody going now to get something out of a wreck i got a couple of deals bro hey you better [Music] as bill's nephew casey looks on bill wants to know how's the tires doing [Music] nowhere at all on the left and a quarter of a thirty second on the right that's just over ten percent ernie knows it's going to be a long afternoon great race between rusty wallace dale earner and ricky rudd this is for the lead and rusty wallace takes the lead in the ac delco 500. [Music] jerry o'neal once again gets together with ken schrader and spins bill elliott drives down in the corner sees the smoke heads for the infield [Music] [Applause] gets by without hitting the thing [Applause] another caution flag another pit stop another chance to adjust the car this time they're adjusting the rear spoiler mike thomas bending up the rear spoiler putting more down pressure on the rear tires ernie elliott taking some tape off the grill so the engine will run a little bit cooler [Music] bill's back to 10th spot restart cards every place going down in turn one [Music] and morgan shepard loses control in front of bill but stays on the wall and elliott is able to drive by [Applause] [Music] just a few laps later 10 laps later to be exact big trouble michael waltrip jack pennington get together and phil elliott runs in the side of michael walter here's what bill elliott saw going in turn three at rockingham he sees michael walker lose control and watch glad everybody's wow everybody's well now ernie and the crew trying to figure out what they're going to do to fix the car and now that it's certainly been up [Music] it feels like that it's uh got it out or something one way or the other you better be careful they decide not to raise the hood that the damage is in the suspension ernie is under the car on the right side making the tow in adjustment with a kick for good measure the car drives away and they tell ernie get up and get back in the fence before somebody runs over you and just nine laps later jim solder loses control down in turn one and once again bill elliott is able to go through an accident it seems like everything that happens today is in front of our hero bill elliot just a few laughs later daryl walters spins in turn one davey allison spins several other cars involved ricky rudd gets ran into in the back of the car all the cars have spotters people up in the grandstands with high visibility above the racetrack watching the racetrack and warning the driver listen to bill elliot's spotter warn him [Music] that's racing at the rock lap 405 perry ghent and alan kowiki get together and harry gantt hard in the turn one wall we have a shot of this from the in-car camera with harry again now listen to this folks oh don't you know that hurts see how much we shorten up that car we'll check the back end on this car he has no back end here's how it happened earnhardt and rusty wallace get together earnhardt spins wallace is able to go by but sterling marlin comes along and knocks the back end completely off bernard's car with a caution flag out the elliots are planning more strategy ernie's got him huddled up they're going to change a right front spring they're jacking both sides of the car up so if the right front will drop down they can they can get the old spring out [Music] folks this does not happen you're in big trouble when you change the spring but they have we see it sitting right behind the jack the aliens had to get special permission from the nascar officials to use two jacks to make that spring change [Applause] and through it all the elliots have not lost their sense of humor yeah we're having a great time somehow i don't believe ernie do you it's four and a half hours later what started as a great day and victory aspirations did not finish that way bill elliott is to finish 15th we can see the crew already getting ready to go back to dawsonville and mark martin takes a checkered flag and wins his first winston cup race ever win or losers work it has to be done mike thomas starts cleaning up the pits and bill elliott drives inside the garage area and what a day it's been we see the tire mark where someone is driven in the left side of the car bill barely has missed four accidents been in an accident where he bent up the front of the car and things got so bad that bill and the crew changed a right front spring that's right folks they changed the right front spring during a pit stop well they talked the whole time and they'd realized once they got in the race that they had the thing sprung wrong and we had to check and see if we could actually do that in the rules but they cleared it and and that did help but we didn't realize what was wrong with the car had had we done that earlier before the crash out and i'm sure things would have been a lot different two weeks later phoenix arizona the valley of the sun bill elliott starts 13th [Music] on a one-mile flat paved oval the phoenix international raceway bill was not very good at the early going fell back in the 20s but listen to bob jenkins called the end of the race look who's watching this bill elliot the first time that we've seen him up in the front runners this afternoon bill elliot began this race from the 13th starting position we're in the final lap as bill elliott from dawsonville georgia looks for career win number 32 in winston cup competition he's through the dog leg on the back stretch still maintaining the advantage with old smoke his body and there is hut strickland ahead of him here they come off of the fourth quarter bill elliott still with about five car length advantage on terry lavonnie the checkered flag falls and bill elliott wins the other works 500. you remember that dejected crew at rockingham a couple of weeks ago this is the same group of guys with an entirely different result bill elliott has won all the work and the strategy they planned that they paid off and they're able to bring the car in the victory lane whether it's for a million dollars or a winston cup championship victory is what it's all about and bill elliott today will take the trophy home it will mean as much to him as a trophy from darlington as a trophy from new york to waldorf bill elliott winner i'll tell you what it's first the race i thought i'd be lucky to be in the top 20 at the end of the day and you know the guys kept working we never give up we kept messing around with the wedge and messing around with stagger and as the day went on the car got better and better but i believe a track changed and just just helped us it just seemed like everything we did you know for our thunderbird just made it work better and better as the day went on and you know with the crew i've got and you know with a good help of coors and and harry melling up in jackson you know without people like that i couldn't be here what if you could change something since you started would you change anything or it'd be hard to change anything uh because everything was was keyed on something else i just wished i had somebody that could sit down and say you know what i could in 83 and 84 when you were running good you could sit down and say okay this is what it's about you know that you need to try to focus on this or you need to do that and you know kind of an idea of how to handle different situations man i you know i get i got thrown in situations i had no idea how to deal with being from a small town in dawsonville [Music] bill elliot is going toward immortality bill elliot gets the checkered fight bill elliot has won an additional 1 million dollars in 1985 [Applause] hey what i've seen a lot of races but that beats all i've ever seen i'll tell you what it feels good i guarantee you that back again it looks good i think we're back 100 percent today it showed mail in coors motor crowd ford all the people involved you know it's been a fantastic year you know we didn't win a race but we won a championship and that's all [Music] ended up chasing a dream and it came true [Music] so you

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Length: 65min 33sec (3933 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 27 2020