RACING’S ROYAL FAMILY – PART 5
Unknown to most observers, Richard Petty
by 1983 had been inquiring with other car owners about becoming their driver.
With Petty Enterprises overtaxed by running two teams, Richard approached M.C.
Anderson about replacing Cale Yarborough, who had announced he was going to
Harry Ranier’s team for 1983. Anderson, however, wanted no part of Winston Cup
with Yarborough leaving, and he shut down his team and sold the equipment and
crew to drag racer Raymond Beadle. Petty had also approached Harry Ranier about
coming over to that ride, but again it didn’t pan out.
So for 1983 Richard and Kyle Petty were
campaigning Pontiacs out of the Randleman shops with Maurice, nursing a growing
physical weakness, as chief engine builder. Kyle had acquired 7-11 sponsorship
and his team was housed in a separate building on the PE grounds. Ostensibly it
gave both teams greater autonomy.
Things appeared back on track at Daytona.
Both PE Pontiacs ran strong in the 125s – Kyle edged A.J. Foyt for third in his
twin, Richard lost the second twin to Neil Bonnett when he was boxed in by
lapped cars. Then in the 500 Richard and Kyle rocketed into the lead and fought
it out amid a huge pack of cars. The lead changed hands 11 times in the first 20
laps, then Richard took over, pulled away, and had a one-second lead after 45
laps. But three laps later the engine went up in smoke. "The bearings went
out of it," Richard said. "I guess we’re starting off this year like
we ended up last year. The car run good, but you can’t run without a
motor."
Kyle stayed in the thick of the battle as
Joe Ruttman and Dick Brooks momentarily fused together and almost lost it all in
the tri-oval of Lap 60. Kyle was running sixth near halfway when the engine
started smoking, and by Lap 100 he was out.
Richard pounded his way to an eighth place
finish – "He drove the hell out of that racecar, didn’t he?" Dale
Earnhardt said – at Richmond. During the Rockingham weekend Maurice went to the
hospital for foot surgery, while Richard timed 12th for the Carolina 500. With
Kyle fighting an incurable cylinder problem, Richard went to the front, escaped
crashes that took out Geoff Bodine, Neil Bonnett, and Cale Yarborough – they
caused ESPN’s Larry Nuber to say, "This place is one tough son-of-a-gun on
racecars." – and held off Bill Elliott by a car length for his first win in
43 races.
Richard led 80 laps and finished fifth at
Atlanta, but then he hit a skid. It ended at, of all places, Talladega. Running
tenth, Richard barely escaped when Darrell Waltrip and Phil Parsons socked the
wall in One, Cale spun into traffic, and Parsons tumbled onto Ricky Rudd’s
trunk. From there Richard controlled the Winston 500 and had the win. Richard
managed top-seven finishes in the next three starts and came home second to Neil
Bonnett in the World 600.
Kyle, meanwhile, struggled and struggled,
managing an eighth at Charlotte and sixth at Riverside, what would be his only
top tens of the year. Richard lost his brakes late and ran out of gas at Pocono,
struggled for the next few races, then nabbed fourth at Talladega. He took the
lead with 25 to go at Michigan, then hit a pothole and scraped the wall off Four
and finished sixth.
Richard continued to acquire top tens, but
the cars were not running up front. More than once he told Maurice to give him
more power, but that was difficult given Maurice’s deteriorating health, given
the general overtaxing of the team, and also given that cheating on engine sizes
among other teams was getting out of hand.
There was also a shortage of parts for
many teams running General Motors cars. "We just can’t get good
parts," Tim Richmond, driving Raymond Beadle’s Pontiac, said. "Only a
couple of the GM teams can get the good stuff. The rest of us are left out in
the cold."
Part of the reason came to light early in
the year. Bobby Allison and the DiGard team had switched to Chevrolet for the
season, but after three races needed new noses. "When we got to Chevy’s
warehouse, our key wouldn’t fit," Bobby said. "We were told if we
needed anything to go see Junior Johnson……Junior had the noses, but he
wouldn’t let us have any." So DiGard switched back to Buick.
Finally, for the National 500 at
Charlotte, Richard timed an inglorious 20th. He stayed on the lead lap all day,
and in the final 40 laps he pitted under yellow, and the crew put left side
tires on all four corners of the car. This was an old pit tactic and legal as
such until the 1983 season.
The final 37 laps were a sprint. Richard
clawed into second and on Lap 312 he slithered alongside race leader Darrell
Waltrip in the tri-oval. Normally passes at Charlotte took the better part of a
lap to complete, but in Two of Lap 312 Waltrip inexplicably pulled high and
Richard stormed to a surprisingly large lead. Petty won by three seconds.
But during victory ceremonies, NASCAR
official Jim Baldwin noticed the serial number D2881 on Petty’s right side tires
– a serial number denoting tires meant for the left side. "We have a
problem here," he radioed Billy France, Bill Gazaway, and Dick Beaty in the
control tower.
Beaty went to the inspection station while
Richard was handed a note; "Big Trouble." Richard went to the
inspection area and arrived in time for Maurice to tell Beaty that the engine
measured 381 cubic inches – 23 cubic inches over the limit.
By 8 PM that October day NASCAR had handed
down its punishment – $35,000 and the loss of 104 points. The win, though, stood
in the record books. "We at Petty Enterprises accept the penalty. I’m only
the driver and don’t know anything about the motor or the tires."
Race runner-up Darrell Waltrip growled,
"This is all in total contradiction of the most flagrant rules
violation." There were, though, questions about Waltrip’s Junior Johnson
Chevy, long known as The Company Car because of Junior’s reputation for cheating
as well as questionable officiating calls that went to the #11’s benefit. And
given that the #11 team had already left the track, "There was no
second-place car to tear down," as Petty wrote.
Given Richard’s sponsor commitments and so
forth, it is unlikely that he knew of Maurice’s or the pit crew’s actions
beforehand. He did, though, write this: "Let me tell you one thing: If our
engine was that big and produced that much horsepower, then how in the world
were all those other cats passing me on the straightaway?" Indeed, it told
the sport a lot about what was going on, and NASCAR vastly improved its
inspection procedures afterward.
It also convinced Richard that he could no
longer be an owner-driver. "We were trying to run two full-scale efforts,
and both were suffering." Also, "All of a sudden there were just too
many Pettys trying to run things."
It took a toll on Richard’s relationship
with his son. "Richard wanted (Kyle) to run the business, then didn’t like
the way he did it," Pattie told author Frye Gaillard. "They were
butting heads. Kyle was only 23 when he started."
Following the National 500 Richard met
with a local car dealer who was forming a Winston Cup team, named Rick Hendrick.
Harry Hyde, largely out of the sport for several years, was slated to be crew
chief. The team, however, wanted to run Chevrolets, and Petty had a sponsorship
deal with Pontiac and STP wanted him to run Pontiacs. So the Hendrick-Hyde deal
went nowhere.
Richard also met with California record
executive and politico Mike Curb, who was negotiating with Bob Rahilly and Butch
Mock, owners of the #75 Winston Cup team that had come off two victories and a
solid sixth in 1983 Winston Cup points. Curb had provided some sponsorship money
to Dale Earnhardt and Rod Osterlund during the 1980 season, and now was looking
into becoming a team owner with engines supplied from Rahmoc’s shops. Richard
met with Curb, Rahilly, and Mock, and after the American 500 at Rockingham
Richard announced he was leaving Petty Enterprises to drive Curb Pontiacs
powered by Rahmoc and crew chiefed by Buddy Parrott, departed from Ron
Benfield’s #98 team after three surprisingly winless years.
"Then things started happening within
the sport," as Richard put it. Warner Hodgedon, who had sponsored Neil
Bonnett at Rahmoc, moved Neil to a second Junior Johnson team. Ricky Rudd was
slated to get the #75, but then Dale Earnhardt quit Bud Moore’s team and went to
Richard Childress. Rudd then decided to go with Bud Moore. This left the Rahmoc
#75 seat open, and in November Curb, Petty, and Rahmoc announced that they would
merge their efforts, with Richard driving Rahmoc-prepared Pontiacs (renumbered
43 from the team’s traditional 75) for 1984. Buddy Parrott even took an ex-Petty
Enterprises Pontiac built by Warren Prout to Daytona for testing for Rahmoc.
But in January of 1984 talks between Curb
and Rahilly ran into a roadblock, and Richard "couldn’t see where all the
money was going." Butch Mock thus asked Richard to ditch Curb and drive the
Rahmoc car. Richard, though, had given Curb his word that he’d drive for him,
and the Petty-Rahmoc deal fell apart. Petty, Parrott, and their cars and
equipment thus wound up renting space out of Petty Enterprises shops.
Now, the most dangerous question in racing
is "What if?" But one can’t help but wonder what would have happened
if Richard Petty had driven Rahmoc’s Pontiacs in 1984. It is hard to believe,
given Richard’s driving and the consistent excellence of Rahilly and Mock’s
machinery, that there would not have been great success, perhaps even a
championship run. One wishes we’d been able to find out what a Petty-Rahmoc
alliance would have brought.
In any event, Curb got a deal with DiGard
Racing to use engines built by Robert Yates. The car itself was, as Buddy
Parrott put it, "a basket case. It was literally in baskets" by the
time Speedweeks final preparations got going. Given how steep the odds were
against Petty, there was little confidence by the sport’s railbirds in Richard’s
chances entering the 26th annual Daytona 500.
There was even less railbird confidence in
Kyle’s Petty Enterprises effort for 1984. 7-11 sponsorship had been associated
with numerous Ford teams, and with Pontiac’s backing going to Curb, Kyle and
Maurice switched over to Fords for 1984. Maurice’s health, though, was not what
it needed to be, and Kyle was basically in over his head running a race team.
In the Daytona 500 Cale Yarborough,
driving Harry Ranier’s Chevrolet powered by Waddell Wilson, cracked 201 MPH for
the pole and was the overwhelming favorite for the race. Richard timed in
mid-pack and broke a camshaft in his 125. Kyle finished eighth in his 125.
Come the 500, Kyle lasted only 21 laps
before the engine gave out. Richard, on the other hand, had a surprise in hand.
Starting 34th, Richard started knifing through the field, and by Lap 30 had
clawed into the top five as Cale battled Bobby Allison for the lead. Petty
stormed into the lead at Lap 50 and from then on diced with Cale. He surged back
ahead at Lap 87, and Cale admitted in a radio interview to CBS that Richard was
"awful strong." But at Lap 94 Petty broke another camshaft. As
DiGard’s driver Bobby Allison had also gone out with a busted cam, the Monday
conversation between Robert Yates and his cam grinder was no doubt animated.
Richard finished 15th at Richmond, then
finished fourth at Rockingham and Atlanta. He finished eighth at Bristol and
12th at North Wilkesboro. At Darlington Petty, Bobby Allison, Ron Bouchard, an
Dick Brooks crashed into each other on the fourth lap. From then on crashes
galore and red flags for two thunderstorms were the order of the day. Richard
actually led seven laps and finished seventh at a finish coming as the sun was
setting.
As for Kyle Petty, he struggled greatly
until notching a solid fifth place at North Wilkesboro and eighth at
Martinsville. Overall, however, the #7 team was off the pace almost everywhere.
Richard got into it for the win in the
Winston 500, a race that set an all-time record for lead changes. "We led,
they led, everybody lead, it seemed…It was a mind-blower." Petty cut a
tire past halfway and finished a lap down in sixth.
Richard finally got a win after a
race-long duel with Bill Elliott at Dover. It was his 199th Grand National win
and 201st superspeedway-class stock car win. "I hoped that number 200 would
come around pretty quick because I knew the media would be on our team, wanting
to know when we were going to get number 200."
After Dover, however, the Curb #43 hit a
slump, with engine failures at Charlotte and Michigan. At Riverside "we
struggled and finally finished 23rd, but it wasn’t pretty at all," even
though Richard led ten laps. At Pocono Richard surged into the lead early on but
the engine lost a cylinder and he nursed it home 13th.
And behind the scenes Mike Curb’s
relationship with DiGard was deteriorating. Jim and Bill Gardner had managed 40
wins as team owners but had also proven themselves crooked in their business
dealings. Money was forever tight, and it later came out that the Gardners were
stealing money slated for the team to run their outside businesses. Curb’s
payments to DiGard were slower than the Gardners preferred, and privately
Richard’s relationship with the Curb Motorsports team was becoming more
strained.
By the time of the Firecracker 400 Curb
and DiGard were at loggerheads over the Yates engines the #43 had been using.
Richard had had to step in and help cover payments to Robert Yates for his
engines. Unknown to Richard, though, Curb and DiGard had agreed to split after
the Firecracker race. On race morning Yates tried to get the engine slated for
Richard’s Pontiac because of lateness of payments, but an agreement was made to
use the engine.
The Firecracker 400 was a campaign stop
for President Reagan, for whom Petty was campaigning. Reagan’s command to start
engines came aboard Air Force One as he was approaching Daytona’s airport. As
Air Force One landed, Richard’s Pontiac ran down the backstretch, and the image
was captured in one of the most famous racing photos ever.
The 400 was a Cale-Petty battle, with occasional
interludes from Bobby Allison and Dale Earnhardt. The lead changed hands 30
times, and in the final 30 laps Richard had the lead with Cale on his bumper,
waiting for the last lap. But with three to go Modified standout Doug Heveron
hit the Turn One apron, got on his roof, and landed on his wheels. Richard
"stood on it" and down the backstretch Cale stormed past. But in Four
Petty fought back down low and the two crinkled sheet metal into a thick line of
lapped traffic and Petty edged Cale by a bumper.
"I stopped at the start/finish line,
climbed out of the car and then was escorted up through the crowd to a
hospitality suite to meet President Reagan. It was an honor, and he was awed
that Cale and I had been beating on each other for the victory at 200 MPH. I
guess it was just a little hard to explain that it was all just a regular day’s
work for a driver on the NASCAR Winston Cup tour. The car we won the race with
eventually went to Smithsonian Institute, and the driver’s suit I wore for that
victory was given to President Reagan as a gift."
It was among the sport’s greatest moments.
But it also turned out to be an end for Richard Petty.
Curb Motorsports now had to farm out to
get engines for the rest of the season, and engine problems ruined Richard’s
chances at Nashville and Pocono. The Warren Prout Pontiac that won the
Firecracker was raced once more, at the Talladega 500. Richard timed 11th and
stormed into the top five in another huge Talladega battle. He swept past Dale
Earnhardt for the lead on Lap 31, but the drafting line went with Dale and put
Richard back to fifth. When Elliott Forbes-Robinson crashed a few laps later,
Richard pitted with the field, but coming out the transmission came out. Richard
finished 23 laps down, and the Pontiac was taken to the Smithsonian Institute as
a permanent exhibit of a facet of American social history.
From then on top tens were the most that
Richard could gain without the power of Yates’ engines. He did manage a fifth at
Richmond in September and top tens at Michigan, Charlotte, and Atlanta, but
never led a lap after the Firecracker and ultimately finished tenth in points.
Kyle, meanwhile, continued to struggle
with PE’s Fords; he managed an eighth at Pocono, a sixth at Richmond just behind
Richard’s fifth, and a tenth at Martinsville. But 7-11 sponsorship wasn’t enough
and the debts became so bad that Kyle had to sell chunks of the 200 acres of
land he owned.
The 1984 season was not a total loss for
the Petty family, though. Aside from Richard’s two wins, the family did have
another Winston Cup title. Dale Inman had joined Billy Hagan Racing and driver
Terry Labonte in 1983 and Terry drove Inman-prepared Chevrolets to the 1984
championship.
Buddy Parrott quit after the season while
Kyle negotiated with the Wood Brothers for 1985. Richard noted, "The Wood
Brothers and the Pettys were ‘married’ in a mock ceremony at Charlotte, and it
was strange" given the decades of fierce rivalry between the two families.
As for Maurice, his health was no longer
in racing, and in April of 1985 Petty Enterprises was shut down. Curb
Motorsports now contracted with Dan Gurney out in California for engines. This,
though, turned into a fiasco as Gurney was out of his element with stock car
engines, and in June Richard had reopened Petty Enterprises’ engine shop and had
engines built that had more power than Dan Gurney’s stuff could muster. "I
paid the help and bought all the pieces out of my pocket," Richard wrote.
"I didn’t ask Curb for anything. That’s how much I wanted to win – I was
willing to spend my own money to make it work."
Curb, however, was not willing to let
Richard use engines not built in the Curb pipeline. Petty punched the tri-oval
wall in the Firecracker 400 and broke his foot; he thus had to pass up a
scheduled short track appearance in New Hampshire the next weekend, and Tim
Richmond substituted. Petty also began working to reopen Petty Enterprises
altogether. Dale Inman, seeing what was happening, agreed to leave Billy Hagan’s
team and return to Petty Enterprises as crew chief. Richard finished out 1985
with eight top tens and a third at Richmond in September.
Kyle, meanwhile, began to show something
with the Wood Brothers. He amassed seven top fives and finished ninth in points,
by far his best points showing to date. He also was getting a strong salary and
managed to work out of debts incurred in 1984. His family was also expanding;
Austin joined the family around 1983 and daughter Montgomery Lee –
"Gomer" as he often called her – arrived around 1985. But Kyle still
had not won a race, and people now wondered if he ever would win.
With 1985 done, preparations for 1986
began. General Motors, humiliated by Bill Elliott’s Ford in ’85, began work on
new-generation racecars, the GM10 platform, based on the body style of Elliott’s
T-bird. These new cars, however, were several years away, so as a stopgap Buick
and Olds rolled out fastback versions of the LeSabre and Cutlass, while Pontiac
and Chevrolet added sloped bubble-glass rear windows to the Grand Prix and Monte
Carlo – Pontiac went even farther and added a flush nose to the GP. Richard
tested the car at Daytona late in 1985 and cracked 200 easily.
Petty Enterprises was up and running for
1986, but the usual teething problems of "new" efforts as well as
sorting out new cars meant a slow start for the STP Pontiac. Richard timed tenth
for the Daytona 500 but slapped the fourth turn wall early on. He was still
running 15th when the right front collapsed and he slammed the second turn wall;
the hit was so hard Richard’s helmet was nearly yanked off his head.
Next up was the Miller 400 at Richmond.
Richard timed 27th, struggled all day, and finished 20th. Kyle started 12th and
was running fifth in the late stages. With three to go Darrell Waltrip, who’d
spent most of the day a lap down, rocketed into the lead past Dale Earnhardt.
But entering Turn Three Earnhardt hooked Waltrip and suddenly both punched the
guardrail. Joe Ruttman and Geoff Bodine were collected and Bodine wound up
unable to finish.
But Kyle snaked past the wreckage and
suddenly was in the lead as the race ended under yellow. The sport’s first
third-generation winner, though, was overshadowed by the huge controversy over
the crash.
Kyle followed up with 11th at Rockingham.
Richard, meanwhile, led 54 laps and finished a strong third. Both Pettys were
now finishing in the top ten with consistency and had nearly a dozen top tens
between them by the time of the World 600. But in practice for the Richard Petty
slammed the wall and suffered a concussion and a bruised leg. The Pontiac could
not be repaired, and NASCAR did not allow the use of backup cars at races other
than Daytona and Talladega. So D.K. Ulrich gave up his #6 Chevrolet for Petty,
who finished 38th with a blown engine.
The Michigan 400 came in June, and it was
being promoted as Richard Petty’s 1,000th Winston Cup/Grand National start. That
a records flub meant it was actually start #999 was overlooked, and an elaborate
pre-race ceremony honored Richard for all his accomplishments. Richard ran
strong early on, but cut a tire and finished a lap down in 13th.
Kyle finished fifth in the Pepsi 400 and
eighth in the Summer 500 at Pocono. That Pocono race, decided in a stunning
photo-finish win by Tim Richmond over Ricky Rudd and Geoff Bodine, turned out to
be one of Richard’s most frustrating races. Richard was sideswiped by Dale
Earnhardt following mid-race yellow flag stops and Petty retaliated by knocking
Earnhardt to the Tunnel Turn Wall. By Lap 116 he’d clawed his way to second with
a nifty outside pass around Bobby Allison in the Tunnel Turn, but was passed by
Geoff Bodine and Tim Richmond. Bodine then got under race leader Neil Bonnett at
Lap 121 when Richmond dove three wide entering the Tunnel Turn, just as Jim
Sauter tagged the wall in One. Richmond skidded into Bodine as Bonnett escaped,
then Richmond spun into Petty’s path; both cars collided door to door and Petty
socked the inside guardrail.
Richard was angered by the whole thing:
"Well, they had a little crash over Two there, and I ran into it. I don’t
really want to talk about it, but I’m a little disturbed now at some people who
call themselves racecar drivers who can’t drive no better than I can. I mean,
caution flag and they crash, right? What are they doing crashing on a caution
flag? That’s terrible."
Both Pettys then had a wild day in the
Talladega 500. Kyle cut a tire and lost a lap at Lap Five, then made it up.
Richard, meanwhile, started 24th and stormed into the top six, and then rubbed
doors with Earnhardt for the lead for three straight laps. Petty’s engine then
uncorked and he slid into the inside guardrail off the tri-oval. Kyle clawed his
way back into contention but was hit by a spinning Bobby Allison in a seven-car
melee on the final lap and finished ninth.
When 1986 was over Kyle was tenth in
points and Richard was 14th. "It was obvious that we still had a long way
to go," Richard wrote. But it was also obvious that they were getting
there. The 1987 Daytona 500 showed that; Richard hung tough and led three laps
in the final ten, en route to third. Richard began putting together good
finishes – he finished third in a wreck-strewn Rebel 500 at Darlington, second
at Bristol, sixth at North Wilkesboro, and fourth at Charlotte. Kyle was also
getting going – seventh at Richmond, ninth at Atlanta, seventh at Bristol, and
then in the World 600 he nabbed the win. "I didn’t want to lead this race,
but it seemed like I was the only one left," Kyle said of a day where only
17 starters finished.
Then at Dover Richard punched the wall
early and cracked two ribs. For the Pocono 500 the next week Richard could only
drive a pace lap and then give way to Joe Ruttman – by driving the first pace
lap Richard was credited with the start and thus got the points; it was the
second time that season that a driver got points for driving the pace lap, as
Terry Labonte, injured in a savage crash at Darlington, was relieved by Brett
Bodine at North Wilkesboro and Bristol. At Pocono Ruttman was running fifth when
the engine erupted and he socked the first turn wall in the final 15 laps.
Ruttman relieved Richard after the first
pace lap at Riverside and brought the STP Pontiac home sixth, then Richard got
back in for good at Michigan. He finished eighth in the Summer 500 at Pocono and
then led 30 laps late in the going at Michigan; he had the field covered but a
yellow in the final laps forced a stop that dropped him to sixth; he then banged
wheels with Davey Allison on the final lap and punched the backstretch
guardrail.
Richard came achingly close yet again at
Darlington. He blew past Dale Earnhardt on the outside of the turns past
halfway, but lost the lead two laps later and wound up third as rain ended the
race early. Petty clawed his way to fifth after starting an embarrassing 41st at
Charlotte, while a mid-race crash with Geoff Bodine and Rick Wilson eliminated
him at Atlanta. When the 1987 season was over, Richard was eighth in points and
Kyle seventh. "The year was not up to our expectations," Richard said,
"but…..it was better than the last couple of years, so at least we’re not
going downhill."
With Pontiac rolling out its GM10 body for
1988 there was great hope. The car’s redesign made it faster; however, it proved
unstable in traffic, more so than with Buick and Oldsmobile’s GM10 styles.
Moreover, Petty Enterprises had switched from Laughlin chassis to those of a new
builder, Jay Hedgecock, a local Modified racer. Sorting out this new chassis
made the task even more daunting. Then there were Daytona and Talladega – when
Bobby Allison ripped out 100 feet of tri-oval fencing at Talladega, 200 MPH was
banished forever. NASCAR tried smaller carburetors for the biggest tracks in the
summer of 1987, but speeds still reached 200, and following some lobbying by
Robert Yates and others, for 1988 it choked down engines even more with carburetor
plates, back in NASCAR use for the first time since 1974. Initially drivers
favored the return of the plates – said Darrell Waltrip, "I feel as a
driver, now I can do more than I could before."
But for Petty Enterprises, Daytona in the
new age of restrictor plates was a disaster. Richard spun in his 125 and really
didn’t have enough speed to contend for the win. And then on Lap 106 Petty was
tagged by Phil Barkdoll, spun into A.J. Foyt, and was launched over Foyt onto
his roof. Petty tumbled toward the wall, rolled along the newly-reinforced
fence, came to a stop, then was nailed in the left front by a spinning Brett
Bodine. Among those barely escaping the melee was Kyle.
Richard got out of the incredible crash
with a twisted ankle after whacking the clutch pedal, but the racing world was
scared out of its shorts by the crash – in a supreme irony, Richard and STP once
again got greater publicity from a crash than they ever did with wins.
Petty finished a stellar third at
Richmond, but overall "we struggled through blown motors, cut tires,
accidents, poor qualifying, and mechanical failures…..we simply could not
figure out the new Pontiac" even though Neil Bonnett won twice with it for
Rahmoc and then Rusty Wallace won six times and finished a very close second to
Bill Elliott in the title chase. "….and by the latter part of the season
the crew was doing some very experimental things to the car" to get it
balanced properly.
Pocono and Michigan were two tracks where
they hit it, but at Pocono in June Richard raced too hard in the Tunnel Turn and
crashed, then broke at both Michigans and the July Pocono. It wasn’t enough,
though, and Richard needed improvements in 1989. It wasn’t enough for Kyle,
either, winless in 1988; he got a call from a millionaire few in racing knew
about, and it led to a mid-summer meeting – which in turn led to a brand new
Winston Cup team.