One Hot Night: 1992 NASCAR All-Star Race

knew that night racing was a pretty magical lights a mile and a half racetrack it was something that just hadn't been done if they can pull it off this is gonna be the greatest thing we've done bring out ten minutes pitter you could feel the build-up as each segment progressed that last left is seared into my mouth now they touch the way he hit that wall the real interest rate hot night in Charlotte it certainly gained all the credence that ever needed there is no greater natural resource in sports than star athletes and as NASCAR rose to a national stage in the mid eighties it wanted to shine a spotlight on its elite drivers baseball and basketball have the roster our games football has its Pro Bowl and so ladies and gentlemen in the spring of 1985 a very select group of Winston Cup drivers are going to get the chance to go racing for $500,000 in the Winston the race for NASCAR winneth the 1985 NASCAR and RJ Reynolds Tobacco debuted the Winston the all-star event was a battleground for top drivers to chase the sports largest cash prize look out it wins this race today is obviously going to make a lot of money and this I'm one of the most important races will run this year there were no points on the line the only thing that mattered was winning it was go all out because we want this trophy and we want this money for seven years the Winstone produced thrilling moments but failed to connect with the fans crowd preferred watching their drivers chase championships as an exhibition the Winston needed to offer more the original concept of the Winston is that the first year be at Charlotte and then it would rotate around to various other speed ways it did rotate to Atlanta Motor Speedway those 1986 and there weren't 10,000 people there the Austral race really to the fans meant nothing at that time so it did have a hard time gaining traction it was missing the kind of pomp and circumstance that Charlotte Motor Speedway was well known for and by 1991 r.j. Reynolds felt like it had kind of run its course and the whistles no longer served a purpose and for 1992 had no plans to run it it wasn't finished it was dead the all-star race was on the rocks but NASCAR was on the rise Kyle Petty and Davey Allison were part of an infusion of talent and enthusiasm over the start of a new decade I have driven for my father for a couple years and then he left uh in the early eighties and I ran a 7-eleven car out of a petty enterprises then I went to drive for the Wood Brothers for a few years checkered flag is coming out Kyle Petty has wanted and then left the Wood Brothers um and didn't have any place to go capetti was picked up by a flashy young car owner named Felix ibadis they're renegade attitude and focus on fun formed one of the most electric race teams of the air Gaza free spirit after love with the guy maybe you're happy you're not please welcome petty and we'll hang a lamp here and I'm going bathroom I'll be back hike and the best job that we did with Kyra woman driving temperature because they were both young they knew each other from working at Betty enterprises we sat on the number of holes we won a few races Felix put together a group we could go the racetrack and be competitive weekend a week out Felix was a great owner he was very emotional and he's a great motivator he found out what it took to motivate people and had fun doing it this guy's are dedicated that what they do and we have fun doing it so that's that's the important part of it the first Rockingham race that we won I'm talking if he wins the race I'd be in the Rolls Royce not only he won the race he'd kick everybody's butt Kyle was in a position for the first time and really about the only time is in his career with her team that was good enough that he could win a title if there was a time when you could say you were living the dream the early night he's being with Felix was was probably the greatest time for me unlike Petty Davey Allison preferred the garage to the lime way he came from a family renowned for tenacity and resilience Devi was born with worked at my dad's shop ever since I was 12 years old up until just this year he was so competitive and anything he did Davey Allison was really coming into his own as racecar driver in 1991 in 1992 he has so much confidence in Larry McReynolds in the race cars and the engines and he was there to win and make his market and he knew it was his time coming to the strike Morgan usually inside of Davey away from the track Eddie and Alison were very different like their fathers it was only a matter of time before they became Racing rivals I think the great thing about Kyle and Davy was that they were second or in Al's case third generation drivers he spoke to the staying power of the sport NASCAR had all-star drivers but it was on the verge of no longer having an all-star event and that didn't sit right with Charlotte Motor Speedway on her Bruton Smith and track president humpy wheeler Charlotte Motor Speedway believed the Winston was their race that racetrack and that staff was so far ahead of everybody else that they knew that nobody could execute it the way that they could four-wheeler the all-star race was a jewel in the speedway's crown he was determined to keep the event and transform its reputation as soon as it left us the first time I started working on our junior hard since the all-star event was actually created by RJ Reynolds which was why I was called the Winston they put all of their marketing forces behind it but the race had become a losing proposition and it was unlikely that wheeler could convince them otherwise every year we'd have to present them with new ideas on what we could do to make the event better we put together plan and I can remember Pompeian myself going to winston-salem to meet with RJ Reynolds and T Wayne Robertson who is kind of the brains behind the the Winston T Wayne told us I don't care what you say I'm give you the courtesy of a meeting but I don't care what you say it's over we're not gonna do it our JR said what are your ideas what are you gonna do I wanted have fallen fine at the dirt track I think the other idea was to put a huge roulette wheel in the infield and spin it and if it landed on odd we reversed the field our ideas did not get anywhere Dwayne Robertson said when are you gonna come up with a novel ideas I just gave you 10 of me says well we didn't like any other I just say this right I said how about we run it at night he looked at me like I just fallen off the turnip truck he says how can you do that you know I have lies I said I don't know how but we're going to runs are at a premium for the blue crew that story humpy wheeler had delivered a desperate pitch to Winston's t-wayne Roberts a radical approach to save the all-star race for his speedway said how about we run at night how can you do that you don't have lies I said we will he said one nobody's ever let a super speedway I said I don't mean he can't be done that lift them up and I could tell man they're excited Wayne was if they can pull it off this is gonna be the greatest thing we've done but we need to pull it off at the same time I'm thinking to myself now how in the world is gonna do this in 10 months I can remember us leaving the building walking down the sidewalk nope he says well boys we've got to hurry up and figure out how to light that place we were the dog that caught the car it was already the fall and so we had to go to work the idea was ambitious but night racing had long been a cornerstone of the sports landscape Saturday night is stock car racing night all across America we all knew that night racing was a pretty magical thing but the thought of lighting the Super Speedway was a unique challenge mile-and-a-half Speedway that's eight times the size of a football stadium at that point the only race we ran under the lights was Bristol in August they brought in trucks with makeshift lighting just to have enough light to be able to race the lights were announced in October of 1991 pipe was important though tough to believe with no clear design in place we believe that the Winston will be able to run under lights but again we want to make sure we can do this in the super speedway arena I'm sure there are some doubters no facility of this size in the world has been lighted for sports competition gonna be a night race right is sakes pain if I have to bring out ten minutes last night his word of the project spread the garage was filled with skeptics my first reaction was it's just another Hampi deal he came up with so many bizarre ideas his toy I thought it was a joke that's like lighting him a mile behind trash gonna be a heck of a job going to do they learn heart immediately complained about it we're going fast at Charlotte we could outrun the light and so I saw Dale and I said what are you doing do you know what the speed of light is he looked at me just shook his head he was doing a little pro wrestling just creating headlines there were safety concerns about the lighting will there be dark spots dark spots and shaded spots on the racetrack at a local short track at 85 miles an hour 90 miles an hour that's one thing at 100 60 or 70 miles an hour that's totally different thought it was a really stupid idea and I didn't understand how they could do it you can do anything putting a lot of poles a lot of lights and just blast it but we didn't want you to have a problem where if you sit in the grandstand and a car goes down the back straightaway we didn't want to go behind a bunch of telephone poles we wanted to avoid that picket fence effect that you're looking through a picket fence to see the back straightaway we brought in some semi trailers several hundred yards of them and put a fluorescent shop lights on top of them on the inside of the track to see how that worked and it didn't we tried everything and then we discovered Moscow Moscow lighting was a small company in Iowa that just happened of pioneered the science of lighting sports facilities I call athletic director in a number of universities that had put in lights etc and they all kept telling me Moscow is the best and Moscow had partially let Bristol race a mobile lighting trucks we like football stadiums with and we were able like Bristol just like it was a big football stadium the concept of lighting a mile and a half track was intimidating I said you guys tell us what to do I'm not gonna tell you what to do now I just don't want to blind the drivers and I don't want to have a bunch of poles around the inside of the Speedway on the plane ride home we started talking about the idea of maybe there's some way we could actually put the lights down low behind a guardrail and maybe put some shield out over them and that sort of thing the problem with those shallow angles of light is you can't control it so there's not going to blind drivers had a little pocket mirror and I thought well maybe I could cut the light off by using this thing and I had a flashlight actually and shining the flashlight and put on the wall and sure enough it seemed to work and he'd gone over to Kmart and bought a couple of mirrors that you put on closet doors and instead of trying to control the light directly onto the track he was shining it onto the mirrors and reflecting him back onto the track I looked at that and thought wow that's a neat concept and so we ended up building about a 50 to 1 scale model I couldn't believe what I saw the design called mere tram featured hundreds of lights reflecting in the mirrors at precise angles the effect and even glow across every inch of asphalt we were on the fast track we didn't get to final designs until January the race is in May they only had a couple of months to fabricate these pieces run the cabling install everything I don't know how it got done so quickly a 16 18 hour day was not an unusual thing the amount of equipment was staggering 2,200 mirrors and 1,200 fixtures and they all had to be adjusted by hand if you sat down and added them all up before you started you wouldn't do it the lights were designed by engineers but they needed a driver to turn theory into practice and improbable Myron Gordon was both I've raced pretty much all my life started out racing a dirt track here in Iowa nothing of this kind of speed and not on asphalt he said I want to take to Fetty driving school they wanted to find out what she needed is from a driver's standpoint Hampi got us a car and we got to use the car for a couple of weeks we were able to test all the theories that we had of how to make this thing work the ability to to drive around the track and see the lighting from the drivers perspective we were able to solve a lot of problems before we even had drivers give us the feedback work was completed in early April results were illuminating beyond expectation the first time it was lit up and we were sitting there looking at this with my mouth kind of hanging open and you just knew this was gonna be special with the toughest critics the all-stars had yet to weigh in of all outside the gates the project was still shrouded in mystery at night that would work on this light and I could send this big boxes way to do other things and with it no that would turn them on at midnight so in nobody was around to see what they were doing or taking pictures it took on a life of its own and everybody wanted to see it people that had no interest in the sport had no knowledge of the sport suddenly we're asking you questions that was probably the first race that had a theme we came up with one Hyundai everybody was stolen by the lights we were gonna take full advantage of it the first time so we got this idea there's gonna be an open test session in the middle of April let's open the gates it was like 38,000 fans showed up just to watch this test we had the crowd on hand when he got to dusk they were gonna get them to count down and Bruton was gonna throw these switches looks like something a Frankenstein's lab well something went wrong the theme of the race was one hot night and he looks at me he goes don't you think you're taking this one hot night thing a little too far the opening ceremonies fizzled but fans and media gathered for a very different show than it was now time to put mus ghost lights through their paces we felt like the drivers are not gonna be able to see no matter what kind of lights you put in we go to the floor and say Dave you can't see good huh I could I'll say good they thought evasion was better than the sunlight my hat's off for these guys over here to Speedway they've got a a lot of pressure because I know everybody watching to see what they can do and I think their comments were critical to us it helped us see some things that we otherwise couldn't identify a couple of them said yeah I think we got a little glare somewhere in the corner so they asked me Lauren hurt you get any problems with clarity yes coming out of turn two you go to the save the entrance go back three fixtures the lower left-hand corner of that fixtures causing glare he would see things on the racetrack hey guys there's a motor home on fire going down the backstretch right he would see things there's a fight in the grandstands when you tell me and the dealer hard to notice one panel of one light I totally believe it from then on I kind of depended on him to get us the feedback they figure was okay but deal it's probably okay well it you know hopefully we can win it you know it being the first night Winston it'd be a first a monumental woofer so you know I'm ready for it the current of energy surged is May 16th approached one year of trials and tension had raced to this one night in advance of the race you could just feel it there was this aura about this event it had so much excitement built up around it I know we had thousands of people there just from r.j. Reynolds if we want praise matter of fact at one time we were selling more tickets the all-star race and we ordered six hundreds and an annual Rite of Spring is underway here and RV village is beginning to take shape at CMS it's not like football baseball it's not like anything else it's just Racing's in your blood and get you in your blood you don't get rid of it this is the happening thing it's a night race first night race in Charlotte we got to be there you can't get excited when you hear one hot night ten months from the pitch that gave the Winston new life the spotlight descended upon Charlotte and the largest crowd ever for a nighttime sporting event nature's house lights dim for a show of unprecedented scale TNN Motorsports exclusive live coverage of the winter estimated crowd of 150,000 plus her Charlotte Motor Speedway they're ready for one hot I'm glad we've got these seats right here because there's none available anywhere it's not only gonna be one hot night this was one hot ticket to get that night was one of those really special nights when her body was on the edge of their seats it was unbelievable this is the place to be already they are they are ready it's like a packet down I get ready to go Davey Allison here last year and is looking for two in a row it sent chills three because all the fans were just going crazy and a spectacle that we are part of really made you feel proud everybody walked around it's like oh my god this is this is incredible water feeling it's just like a big circus is for it I'm concerned I'm just happened to be one of the clown's descent it we knew it was gonna be different we just didn't know how I was sitting in the crowd cuz I wanted to be able to you know had any issues wanted to be able to get to it and it was a lot of wood it's you know what if the backup system goes off if something electrical trips then everybody says the lights went out they don't say the electricity went off it's hard to really relax you know when you're potentially one step away from a disaster he knew something special was about to happen it was almost dangerous this feeling darkness had been washed away daring energy filled dear and Charlotte Motor Speedway was ready to shine in the daytime when you sit in a grandstands look at the track you can see a lot of countryside because the tracks so big and there's a lot of year view and then at night when the tracks lit the rest of the world goes away and it's like a Broadway stage this appealed looked great it never looked better it's so clean and pretty and crisp you lose the background of the hills and the trees and the cars and the parking lot and everything it's just the racetrack that's lit up and it looks spectacular here they come down for the star in the wizard green flags in the air the corner and all the doubts in anticipation or finally stripped away all that was left for 20 drivers and a mile and a half of radiant asphalt I like this racing under the Knights on a super speaker I like this maybe Alison tries I knew those segments were probably gonna be a bit boring because it was just people trying to get positions for the main event all save but one does really is give you an idea who the contenders might be and Devi just took off in that twenty eight you take a Yates car with Davey Allison driving it they're going to the front they're gonna be the car to beat and when they drop the green flag they show they were the car meanwhile another contender spent the first segment racing from the back Kyle Petty showed his endurance over long green flag runs we weren't bad but we weren't good um we weren't where we needed to be checkered flag has Davey Allison in the first segment of the Winston the segment wind paid a $50,000 bonus but the prize came with a price the fans added some drama of their own devoted to invert the cars way to go fancy Allyson's dominance worked against him and for the first time all night he would have to fight through traffic the fans have voted to put you in the back of the field how you feel about that we'll just have to see what we can do with the traffic now we're not gonna try to out trip herself we're gonna try to lead every lap we can and run as hard as we can and see where the cards fall they weren't a layup team at home you're gonna win they're gonna go to the back they're gonna try to win again that's the way they did things Kyle Petty used the 10-minute break to improve the handling of his car with the added help of flipping the field 42 was ready to make a push to the front we came in and made our adjustment when we went out for the second segment we were good feel is under green Jeff bodean as a leader as I get to leave but petty wasn't the only contender positioning for the final 10 laps her heart now moves up to the outside of the body whoo Brad Pitt can anyone beat her heart that was always the question going into the all-star race on our heart you never know when he digs deep he finds stuff that nobody else can he is caught Richard Petty having been five six car lengths back just a lap ago Earnhardt tracks the leaders hope all these new lights are screwed on tight because this place gonna start shakin ernhardt for second place absolutely crazy here at the shop Motor Speedway watching one of the best since we've seen a long the first segment Davey Allison is running 14th packing a lot of trouble getting through traffic approach what the team was let's get every spot with Hannah and get ourselves in good position for this last ten laughs it was tougher going than we imagined Davey Allison would be moving up from seventh to six five year the 28 was back in contention and while petty ran away with segment two Allison and aardvark position to compete for the big money in the final ten laps shootout kyle petty is about as strong as I've seen a card well once they complete the second 30 laps it is going to pull everybody right back up in the front for shootout to finish the checkered flag is out Kyle Petty $50,000 richer we just had a 10-lap race with nothing before it the guys wouldn't be able to adjust their cars and I wanted the cars to be as perfect as they could be for that last time live the warm-up back was over the main event about to begin 10 laps that would reshape the future of racing the first two legs of the Winston were runaway victories and while the lights were a welcomed attraction the fans paid to see their heroes shine in close combat a final battle to decide the legacy of one hot night ten laps folks $200,000 is on the line Kyle Petty's on the pole Ernie Irvan is right alongside they learn our Kenny Schrader's he wolterman on back everything was focused on the 10-lap shoot out all of the rest was just warm-up act it could feel the build-up in the grandstands as each segment progressed it was that final ten laps segments that everybody was waiting out I'll get some feelings if he wins I guess we're gonna run next week too I went to coke that's a hey if we win the first race under the license Charlotte I get a million dollar for the race team and car gets a million dollar for himself the bonus for me was he would buy lakefront lot on Lake Norman for me and so that was my extra incentive you could see that there were much real they were just setting it up green flag they drop the flag on the 10-lap race there's no strategy your goal is to win that's all you got ten laps in five minutes that's what it boils down to so look at Kyle Petty pulling away you kind of know who your competition is gonna be based on other tracks summer death so I didn't really factor in that the 42 car was gonna be a player but it didn't take me long to realize that that they weren't those ten laps would figure we had it going on we knew those guys behind us that were capable but we had track position we had a short run we were getting ready to cash the check these dogs can fight for the never did I ever think Maddy ship that's wrong man an all-star race is not about somebody to laugh in the field you have to put on a show for the fans so caution should have been turned to barge us back up and to give the fans what they came for six laps to go the caution brought Earnhardt and Allison back to Petty's bunk if they had anything left for the 42 it was time to show it off that's the moment of the night that everybody who had been there for the last four or five hours was anticipated green flag but this time Kyle cannot diss Marta's near the outside lane going into turn number one here's Kyle white on the bottom of the track in our hearts whips around the outside lane Dale Earnhardt goes here's baby Osmond but on that restart all of a sudden he goes from leading the race to third the way our car can work it just took a couple of laps to get I just couldn't go on a restart like those Gasca go both I'm ended up in front of me and you had to fight your way back through we were really good through one and two I go to the bottom of the racetrack and could get back to the gas really early and got a huge run coming off turn two and probably cow was gonna run second we were probably going around third they all ran in every race like I paid a million dollars to win so you knew when you raced him you had to race really hard to get around brazen I'm telling he's gonna come down we didn't have these mammoth pit boxes back here where you were sitting two stories up in the air you pretty much can stand on pit road that's as high as you can get I remember they came off four with the white flag weight child Eddie is just a car length so they take the white flag I'm watching golf in the morning I know in my mind it should be probably on the backstretch and all of a sudden the crowd was losing their flippin mine that was going on back there when they came out of the second term you can hear the cheers of the crowd over the car ernhardt bludgeon all the way to the Renard did what he needed to do he run us down there how did what he needed to do he didn't lift all bets were off on what was gonna happen I eased up and his eyes that Dale went on in the corner but then when he tried to turn then he Rex I look back to turn forward here comes the 28th in 242 side by side will work where's the free car maybe we were cross her fingers cross her legs said I was doing this please here's the strife Alison wins Davey Allison goodness the Winston but pays a huge price it was like watching a footrace and everybody's running for the tape and as soon as you hit the tape you see runners fall down and relax because they that's where they're at and we just got together we want but then it and went back I mean we've had the highest of highs and the lowest of lows game 1 naughty Davey Allison wins the Winston betrays a huge price as the car crashes into the outside retaining wall heat of battle anything could happen tonight everything happened and one but then it went bad I call nori Baird who's the chief emergency guy for us so I said nori how is it and he said I don't know he says he's unconscious and that scared me to death when they reported back that he was unconscious everything just changed the whole night had been such a great success and showed such promise and to end it with a star driver the winning driver unconscious was unthinkable we're back in Charlotte Motor Speedway Davey Allison has been helped from his car and rather than victory lane he's going to transfer it over to the the care center wait he hit that wall and how hard he hit that wall that was a heck of a league we didn't have a lot of anything between her helmet and wall and he hit his head on the wall get drove off the car pulled him out to you in hospital Bobby Allison and I got in the amla's with David and David had come to he must ask ten times what happened I said well how you won the race but you read and he went no way and he go what happened Ben now I said well you won the race but your ad Wow so what happened as Davey Allison arrived at the infield care center attention shifted to the garage where chaos of a different kind was brewing and food right DOP unit stationed when it was over with you know we went to the gas pumps after the race with our mark we all pulled in there and everybody was gathered around and thought there was gonna be this huge brawl that was gonna break out I got out of his car biggie got out of his and their pit crew and our pit crew all went up together I was quite surprised when I got to the pumps and failed Earnhardt laughing he disappointed people because al Earnhardt were high fiving and what a great race he went in the corner and try to take what was he that thought it was right here racers use that stupid saying it's just racing but everything that happened that night was just racing at the end of the night and if you're a racer and you love this stuff and you understand this stuff yeah it was like man I hate it but dang it you know I doubt I would have done the same thing that that guy did you know those the rules of the Winston as racin he's trying to win I was too tonight on the flatbed Davey Allison's car is going to Victory Lane for the first time in history and NASCAR I hope the last time the driver didn't show up at the winner's circle his wrecked car did and I see a wrecker with a car on it back it up into Victory Lane you're seeing exactly what I'm seeing unloading that beaten battered pork Thunderbird up here in victory lane uh-huh no I don't like Rex I hate rats I jumped on the record and asked you got to stop he says they told me to and he started back in again and I hit beside his rifle with my fist I mean I know I bet put a big dent the next one's gonna be in your head you're not taking this gardening what Robert finally agreed to do is you know what we'll get a few team members we'll take some pictures if you look at the Victory Lane photos from the 92 all-star race I think it's Robert Carolyn Yeates some people with r.j. Reynolds maybe a few crew members nobody's really smiling and rightly so here's your winning car owners your winning crew chief engineer crew all they're getting ready to celebrate what not knowing how their driver was first of all we want to know is they be okay yeah Dave is okay he did they knock him out yeah voluntarily but he says he's fine he wanted who want to race he you know you have a big thumbs up when we told him he won Allison was flown to the hospital suffering from a concussion and a bruised lung eyes are already bloodshot he's got his he has no shirt on and there's a big bruise it looked like he'd just been hit by a by a whip across his his shoulder blade he was pretty busted up and he looked up I said well I have good news and bad news the good news is you want about $300,000 tonight and I said the bad news is your doctors bill is gonna be about 4,000 and he was they started laughing he's like stop that pisses me off don't make me laugh my ribs hurt Kyle called Sunday night at the condo and he was pretty shook up about it and he kept apologizing I told him I didn't have any hard feelings for my end you know I didn't see anything that he did that was out of line or that any other Winston Cup driver including myself would have done one hot night illuminated more than just a racetrack it was a spotlight on power bold ideas and uncommon courage we had figured out a way to light racetracks that nobody else had ever done this gonna have an impression for a long time to come we had drama we had excitement we were under the lights on I think it was huge when you see Davey Allison and a learn our scene run that hard for this this race means something to them he gave us some credibility all of a sudden to the fans it wasn't just a promotional race in became the all-star race we were seeing the future of NASCAR that night it really is one of the great moments in Hall sport history the all-star race was reborn somebody better be away three night racing not only saved the all-star race put Motorsports on a primetime stage decades later one night still shines it's certainly gained all the credence that ever needed here too in Charlotte live up to the promise of the pre race and all of the hype that r.j. Reynolds and NASCAR put into it absolute to the checkered flag is it a shower of mark was a one hot night you bet you

Channel: The Nascar Network

Views: 135,855

Keywords: Nascar, NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, 1992 The Winston, Auto Racing (Sport), Night, Racing, NASCAR (Organization), NASCAR On Fox (Award-Winning Work), Documentary (TV Genre)

Id: HhnPTgKtlRw

Length: 42min 43sec (2563 seconds)

Published: Sun May 24 2015

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[u/NCballerx88]

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