That Toddlin’ Town Postscript, and Is This It For Pontiac?
First off, a pair of items from my two previous columns need addressing.
Two
columns back I noted the Geoff Bodine-Ryan Newman crash at Daytona. My
description of the crash was based on several published press accounts, but
since the column’s appearance numerous correspondents have e-mailed corrections
to this item indicating what actually occurred in that crash. I thus stand
corrected and thank those correspondents for setting the record straight.
The second
item is an acidic line used in description of Dale Jarrett’s petulant
tantrum at Daytona after getting out of his car – the line in question goes,
"The hell with you, Jarrett – just because you suck as a racecar driver
doesn’t give you the right to act like a spoiled child."
The line is not a general attack on Dale Jarrett’s career, as some correspondents
initially interpreted. It is a biting reference to his role in the crash that
put him out of the race. To reiterate, Jarrett slammed Jeff Burton to the apron
of the western short chute, was thus tagged by Burton, and spun into Joe
Nemechek, setting off the big crash. Jarrett’s driving was boneheaded to say the
least, and deserving of being slammed.
And amid the continuing acrimony over crashes at Daytona, two crashes during
Grand National qualifying at Chicagoland reminded us all that the raw number of
cars involved in a crash doesn’t necessarily translate to brutality. Certainly
no "big one" at Daytona can compare in viciousness to Christian
Elder’s solo shot into the third turn wall, a crash where he suffered a
concussion and apparent broken collarbone. The second was a backwards slam by
Dan Pardus – shades of his nasty melee with another car in the 2001 Chicago 300.
Pardus’ Chevrolet caught fire. The response of the safety crew didn’t look any
different than normal, yet "was questioned" anyway.
The calls continue for a "professional" traveling safety crew, but
such is a needless luxury and an insult to the safety crews at individual tracks
who have long done a fine job.
Chicagoland was not expected to be a good race, and it wasn’t, but some of
the action turned out to be okay, and the finish was a surprise. Written off for
dead season-wise, Kevin Harvick made a dumb move in the tri-oval, lost it, and
surprisingly didn’t get drilled, while Jimmy Spencer found his increasingly
dismal season getting worse in the aftermath. Harvick then parlayed a non-stop
under the last yellow into victory. Throw in Robby Gordon’s seventh and Jeff
Green’s twelfth, and Richard Childress suddenly looked like the Richard
Childress of old, sweeping both races at Chicagoland.
Chevrolet had a rare dominant day, all but monopolizing the top four and
showing some unexpected depth for a change. Ryan Newman’s Ford turned out to be
the only non-GM machine in the top five and the only one that could really stop
the Chevy stampede, but a late cut right front wiped out his stellar run, and
surprisingly he wound up behind Jimmie Johnson again.
While it was a romp for Chevrolet it turned out to be a nightmare for Dodge.
The new limit to 4.185 inches of cylinder width, looked on with general
trepidation by Dodge teams before, may be weakening Dodge’s effort already, as
no Dodge other than Bill Elliott showed any real muscle. Only Elliott finished
on the lead lap, only he and Marlin finished in the top twenty, and five Dodges
finished in the bottom thirteen of the field. While Dodge is hardly out of it,
they may be taking a beating on the high-horsepower tracks that take up three of
the next five weeks.
Tony Stewart rocketed to third at the end, while teammate Bobby Labonte
struggled and all the other Pontiacs were junk.
Which leads to the big story of the weekend – for a team to develop one car,
then turn around and switch to another, doesn’t make much sense, yet those Joe
Gibbs rumors turn out to have been true after all – JGR will run Chevrolets in
2003, this after developing the 2003 Pontiac. Making the decision all the more
mystifying, Gibbs may not have the same engineering clout with Chevy that he had
with Pontiac – with Pontiac he was the big enchilada; with Chevy he’s just
another team running Bowties.
With JGR’s return to Chevy, only three teams are left running Pontiacs. Doug
Duchardt says, "I’ve been contacted by quite a few teams about
potentially becoming Pontiac teams." Cal Wells has been targeted to switch
from Ford, but if he does it will be stunning.
GM has hinted it will disband Pontiac’s effort if it can’t have five teams or
more, and given the difficulty of signing teams, there’s a real chance this
could be it for Pontiac’s effort.
If this is it for Pontiac, it ends a rich racing legacy – 151 wins to date,
the most recent coming at Richmond in May by Tony Stewart. It was in 1957 that
Pontiac first won in what was then the Grand National Series. Cotton Owens drove
a Ray Nichels Pontiac to bag Grand National’s crown jewel at the beach course in
Daytona. The next win for Pontiac came at LeHi, AR by Marvin Panch.
The Beach was the scene of Pontiac’s next win, by Paul Goldsmith in Henry
Yunick’s #3, wrenched in The Best Damn Garage In Town by ol’ Smokey himself.
Cotton Owens at Rochester, NY and Joe Eubanks at Hillsboro, NC scored the next
wins for the Tin Indian fleet that season.
But it was the period of 1959-63 that Pontiac had its greatest successes.
Edward Glenn Roberts won the inaugural Firecracker 250 at Daytona International
Speedway, the lone win of that season for Pontiac. The next one didn’t come
until Speedweeks 1960; and this time they came on the same day – Glenn Roberts
and Jack Smith both led Daytona 100 qualifiers wire to wire. Junior Johnson’s
Chevy won the 500, but Jack Smith aced the Firecracker in a Pontiac, then
Roberts bagged the inaugural event at Atlanta International Raceway at the end
of July.
Now Pontiacs began to win more often. Cotton Owens won at Spartanburg, and
then Buck Baker survived a bloody Southern 500 – Ankrum Crawford was badly
injured in a pit crash, then three men were killed when Bobby Johns slammed the
pits later – and a post race scoring recheck that dropped Rex White from the win
to second. At the end of October Johns scored Pontiac’s next win in Atlanta’s
inaugural 500-miler.
The 1961 season belonged to Pontiac, as Tin Indians won four straight Daytona
races – both qualifiers, the 500 by Marvin Panch, and the Firecracker by sophomore
David Pearson. The World 600 was Pearson’s breakthrough win, in the Ray Fox #3,
and he added an Atlanta win for good measure. The upshot was that Pontiac and
elder sibling Chevrolet were officially not involved in racing, but those in the
sport knew better – "There was some serious power under those hoods,
especially when it came to the super speedway events," Richard Petty wrote
in 1996.
Pontiac bagged 30 wins in 1961, and in 1962 the beat rolled on with 22 more,
including Glenn Roberts’ Daytona trifecta of the qualifier, the 500, and the
Firecracker. Joe Weatherly drove Bud Moore’s Pontiac, and won the ’62 driving
title with nine wins. GM then surprised everyone by yanking its
"unofficial" involvement in racing, and Pontiac slipped to just five
wins, three by Joe Weatherly in Bud Moore Pontiacs; by getting rides in nearly a
dozen other cars to run all the events, Little Joe captured the 1963 driver
title.
With GM’s pullout from racing after 1962, Pontiac was essentially never heard
from again. There was an effort to jump-start Pontiac in 1971, as mysterious
millionaire Chris Vallo financed a Pontiac GTO for David Pearson out of Ray
Nichels’ shop. The car never really raced well, failed to finish its races, and
a lawsuit was later filed against Vallo. While the Pontiac faltered, Chevrolet
began its comeback with Richard Howard and Junior Johnson; in 1972 Chevy’s
comeback was cemented with Bobby Allison’s torrid challenge for the title.
Pontiac, meanwhile, was still forgotten, though the car did make occasional
starts during the 1970s. At Charlotte Joe Frasson had a Pontiac he’d qualified
with at Talladega, but it failed to make the field, so Frasson took a jack
handle and started pounding on the Pontiac, and quipped to reporters, "I’d
like to announce the retirement of this Pontiac." NASCAR’s Bill Gazaway
wasn’t amused and fined Frasson for unbecoming conduct.
It was the 1981 changeover to 110-inch wheelbases that was the real salvation
for Pontiac. The Grand Prix was the popular choice – Rod Osterlund campaigned
one with Dale Earnhardt. The new Burt Reynolds-Hal Needham team Mach One Racing
campaigned a Pontiac for Stan Barrett, then when Harry Gant was hired for the
’81 Rebel 500 he wheeled a Pontiac. Rookie Morgan Shepherd drove a Pontiac for
Cliff Stewart, and at Martinsville scored the brand’s first win in some two
decades.
But it was a different Pontiac that set NASCAR on its ear. With the new
notchback cars proving very hard to handle and quite crash-prone, Ranier Racing
and Bobby Allison pondered what to race. At Davey Allison’s suggestion, the team
tested a Pontiac Lemans, a sloped-back car. The Lemans handled much better than
the notchback machines all other teams were using, and to the Ranier team’s
surprise they were the only team with the Lemans. Allison won the Daytona 500
pole, lost the Clash on a cut tire, won his qualifier, and dominated the 500
before running out of gas and losing to Richard Petty. NASCAR then shaved
spoiler off the car, rendering it less competitive, and after several weeks (and
some very public disagreements between the Ranier team and NASCAR) Allison
switched to Buick.
The Ranier team brought back the Lemans for 1982 but the lower spoiler still
handicapped it, and by 1983 with new driver Cale Yarborough they were
campaigning the new Chevrolet Monte Carlo. But after Cale flipped into the
fourth turn wall in qualifying the Ranier team shipped down the Lemans, which
had been converted to a short track car, and won a rip-roaring 500 on the last
lap.
Pontiac’s next win came two races later. Richard Petty had run Buicks in
1981, but Pontiac, looking to racing as a much-needed marketing tool, went with
Petty Enterprises, Raymond Beadle’s Blue Max team from the remains of M.C.
Anderson’s withdrawal after ’82, and Cliff Stewart Racing. Both Pettys, Geoff
Bodine in the Stewart Grand Prix, as well as Cale all led handily in the 500. At
Rockingham Geoff Bodine lost a lap, but got it back when Joe Ruttman slammed the
third turn guardrail; from there he worked his way to the lead and after 400
miles looked unbeatable. Richard Petty started 12th and worked into the top five
quickly, then pounced as crashes eliminated Bodine, then the Chevys of Cale and
Neil Bonnett. Petty bested Bill Elliott by seven feet at the stripe.
Petty and Pontiac’s next win came at the Winston 500. After Darrell Waltrip
and Phil Parsons (driving Johnny Hayes’ Lemans) banged wheels, both punched the
first turn wall, Parsons tumbled high in the air, and ten cars were eliminated.
Petty took over and beat Benny Parsons and Lake Speed for the win.
Tim Richmond, in the Blue Max Pontiac, scored next, in a hot shootout at
Pocono’s Summer 500, his first win at the triangular super speedway. Pontiac’s
fifth and last win of the year came amid huge controversy. The win was the
"Pettygate" National 500 at Charlotte, and led to the changeover to
Curb Motorsports.
Pontiac had slim pickings in 1984, though in his first start for Curb,
Richard Petty rocketed to battle Cale Yarborough and Bobby Allison for the lead
at Daytona, only to fall out with a broken camshaft. Tim Richmond pounced when
Ricky Rudd faltered at North Wilkesboro, then Petty sweated out a race long duel
with Bill Elliott to beat Richmond at Dover.
The next win was historic. Before President Reagan Petty edged Cale
Yarborough by inches in the Firecracker 400, his 200th win. But squabbles
between Curb and their engine supplier, DiGard Racing, wound up killing the team
from then on, and Petty would re-open Petty Enterprises in 1986 for seven
additional seasons as driver, finishing second at Atlanta in 1986 and Bristol in
1987, third at the ’87 Daytona 500, and eighth in 1987 points.
With the renewal of the factory wars, exotic car designs came back into
vogue. Pontiac came out with intimidating-looking flush-nosed bubble-glass Grand
Prix 2+2s for 1986, but the new cars were difficult to balance and teams using
them struggled to master them. Pontiac didn’t win again until Bristol in April,
and the winning driver was Rusty Wallace, in Raymond Beadle’s Pontiac. Wallace
put together a strong third season with a second win (this one at Martinsville),
and sixth in points. He bagged two road course wins in 1987 for the 2+2’s only
other wins, and finished high in 1987 points. By 1988 Wallace and Blue Max
Racing were considered the lead team for Pontiac’s effort atop Petty
Enterprises, the new Bahari team, and Rahmoc Racing, now campaigning new
bubble-shaped GM10 bodies.
The new bodies were combined with a new cylinder head Pontiac had worked with
Brodix to develop. Suddenly Pontiacs were winning with growing regularity,
started by Neil Bonnett’s back-to-back wins at Richmond and Rockingham. Rusty
Wallace won the final event ever at Riverside and took the point lead, but lost
that lead and trailed badly by October, only to nail down four wins in the final
five events and narrowly miss the title. That momentum carried over into 1989 as
Wallace scored six wins and narrowly eked out the championship.
Pontiac’s lineup shuffled somewhat. Felix Sabates, a Cuban-born self-made multimillionaire,
had campaigned a Grand National car with business partner Ted Conder in 1988,
and during that season they purchased Rick Hendrick’s R&D team, complete
with crew chief Gary Nelson. The new SABCO team hired Kyle Petty as driver and
wanted to run Chevrolets, but Chevy showed no interest. Pontiac stepped in, and
with PEAK Antifreeze sponsorship the new #42 team entered a limited 1989
schedule. By 1990 the effort became a full-season task, with the team beefing up
its engine shop and getting some serious power. At the Carolina 500 Kyle mopped
up all opposition, and Pontiac was clearly a serious player in NASCAR. Kyle
nickel-and-dimed a high number of top tens and after years of sentiment that he
wasn’t serious enough about racing, had showed enough muscle to finally be seen
as a true race driver.
Surprisingly, Pontiac won only three races that season, with Rusty Wallace
bagging the World 600 and Sears Point 300 before a long-running monetary dispute
with Beadle lead to the collapse of the team, and a rumored alliance with Roger
Penske came to fruition for Wallace for 1991. Penske’s return to NASCAR after 14
years away saw wins at a demo derby to end all such at Bristol, and a
rain-shortened demo derby at Pocono. While the championship form of 1989 wasn’t
there, the potential clearly was.
Also muscling forward was Kyle Petty and SABCO, winning Rockingham again and
leading the most laps of the season entering the Winston 500. Kyle’s shattered
leg in that race all but wiped out the season for the combination, and at the
end of the year Gary Nelson left to become NASCAR’s new Winston Cup director.
Filling in Nelson’s crew chief shoes for 1992 was an old friend of Kyle, Robin
Pemberton.
Other Pontiacs were struggling, though they too showed potential. Petty
Enterprises endured a disastrous 1989 and began a top-to-bottom reorganization.
Richard stunned the sport by exploding to the lead at Daytona’s first 125 and
was a favorite for the 500 before a cut tire spun him out. He posted his first
top ten in two years at Pocono in 1990, and in 1991 finished second in his 125
and again showed muscle in the 500 before fading. He now started showing some of
the form of old with a stellar effort at North Wilkesboro, a strong run at the
World 600, a strong rally from mid-field to 11th at Pocono, an even stronger run
at Pocono in July, and what turned out to be his final career top ten at Watkins
Glen.
The other big Pontiac team was Bahari Racing. Michael Waltrip was the driver
and he had finished second at Pocono in 1988 and posted several top fives in
1990. In early 1991 it appeared he would win the Atlanta 500, then he completely
dominated the Rebel 500 before a slow stop threw away his chances. Michael led
at Talladega and Charlotte, won poles at Dover and Michigan, led again at
Talladega in July, and overall had a competitive season.
But 1992 was the first year of the GM Motorsports Technology Group, headed by
Chevrolet’s Herb Fishel. A new Chevy cylinder head was being issued to GM teams
despite the continued popularity of the Pontiac/Brodix heads, and the results
were less than spectacular. GM didn’t win a Winston Cup race until the World 600
by Dale Earnhardt, and Pontiac was struggling the most, despite strong efforts
by Kyle Petty and Rusty Wallace.
Pontiac teams chafed at the aerodynamics of the car and its lack of rear down force,
but at a test session at Watkins Glen, SABCO widened the nose of their Pontiacs
and were stunned by how much stronger the car now ran. Kyle won at The Glen for
Pontiac’s first win of the year, and now loomed as an outside favorite for the
championship. At Martinsville he made up several laps amid an epidemic of
crashes and finished fourth, then led all but eight laps at Rockingham in
October for his second win of the year. Ultimately Kyle finished fifth in
points, his highest ever point position.
Rusty Wallace and Roger Penske, meanwhile, made a pivotal change with the
hiring of Buddy Parrott. Wallace and Parrott won at Richmond in September,
finished second at Martinsville, and dominated Phoenix before falling out with
battery failure. Wallace now knew he had what it took to win another title, and
in the 1992-3 interregnum the team gelled to the point where Wallace predicted
ten victories for his team, a pick the media scoffed off.
They wound up eating their words. A flush air dam solved most of Pontiac’s
handling problems for 1993, and Wallace exploded to four wins in the first eight
races, before his title express was derailed by Dale Earnhardt in Rusty’s last
lap tumble at Talladega. The next four races were fatal to Rusty’s title hopes,
but he won at New Hampshire, and after the Diehard 500 Wallace closed steadily
on Earnhardt with five wins in the final eight races.
Kyle Petty’s season appeared to be almost as good with the pole at the
Daytona 500 and the strongest car through the race, but a pit miscue dropped him
back and a crash with Bobby Hillin derailed Kyle’s 500 bid, and also affected
his season. He broke at Rockingham and then went on a top-five binge before
problems at Talladega, Charlotte, and Dover sunk him lower. He then led 148 laps
to win Pocono, but the strength of his team began to ebb. He led 39 laps at
Talladega and squeezed ahead of Earnhardt on the final lap, only to get clothes lined
on both sides. He led at Watkins Glen but spun and collected Earnhardt, and his
season steadily ebbed; he finished fifth in points again, but with far less
momentum entering 1994 than the season before.
And then the bottom fell out. GM cut backing to Pontiac teams – to the point
that Penske Racing made a very public switch to Ford amid an acrimonious
exchange of press releases; Penske’s Pontiac sheet metal went to Bill Davis
Racing – and Pontiacs failed to win in 1994, despite getting a new nose and tail
section in May to improve down force. GM help was so small that Pontiac teams
got together and began sharing information to improve their fleet.
Things started getting better in 1995. Bobby Hamilton joined Petty
Enterprises and began to finish in the top ten with some regularity. SABCO had
gone through a wholesale reorganization and in early 1995 began to run to the
front again. Kyle got into the top ten at Darlington but crashed, led early,
fell back, then clawed back to the top ten before getting in another crash at
Bristol, then at North Wilkesboro stormed into the top five before fatigue and
lack of an available relief driver finally knocked him out – and began feeding
rumors about his health. Bahari Racing also began to run better, this after a
respectable 1994 season.
At the Mason-Dixon 500 at Dover, Pontiac’s comeback was completed, as Kyle
escaped a 14-car crash, stormed from 37th into the lead, led 275 laps, and held
off Bobby Labonte, Ted Musgrave, and a suddenly-rejuvenated Kenny Bernstein #26
and Hut Stricklin for his first win in two years. Kyle then nearly pulled off a
win at the Firecracker 400, and during that weekend addressed burgeoning AIDS
rumors on a radio talk show. The SABCO effort petered out after a stellar top
ten at Talladega, but Kyle still managed a strong effort at Martinsville.
The new Pontiac arrival turned out to be Ward Burton, who joined Bill Davis
Racing at Bristol in August, finished in the top five at Darlington, the top ten
at Charlotte, and then won at Rockingham. Combined with a strong rally in the
final third of the season by Bobby Hamilton, and Pontiac suddenly was worth
taking seriously on merit again.
For 1996 hopes were high on a new W-body Grand Prix, but unknown to most at
the time, there was serious trouble afoot. GM had submitted the blueprints for
the new Grand Prix to SABCO in October 1994, but Sabates made no effort to build
a prototype, so in June 1995 blueprints were sent to Bahari and a prototype was
finally track-tested at Talladega in August. The time lost cost Pontiac dearly
in preparation for ’96, and wound up costing BDR even more as the #22 failed to
qualify several times in ’96 and failed to win.
SABCO also had a dismal season, made worse when Kyle took the lead at the
Brickyard, then cut a tire, bounced hard off the Turn Four wall, and was T-boned
by Sterling Marlin. Once back in the seat, Kyle managed to salvage something
with hard-earned top tens at Dover and Martinsville, but his days with SABCO
were ending.
Kyle took his Pontiac backing to a satellite effort of Richard’s team, which
had worked and worked and in 1996 finally returned to victory lane, at Phoenix
with Hamilton. The road to victory lane had been among the most frustrating ever
seen; at the Carolina 400 a hot battle for the lead became hotter when Dale
Earnhardt punted Hamilton to the wall. Hamilton’s quest for a win became one of
the top stories of the season even before the win finally occurred.
Internal controversy flared within the GM camp over the Pontiac’s uneven
performances and the lack of engineering help from GM – at one point Dale Inman
of the Petty team snarled at GM engineer Terry Laise, "I’m sick of you
lying to me." The nosepiece of the Grand Prix had gone through several
changes before being submitted for 1996, but in June a lower nosepiece was
allowed by NASCAR to cure a burgeoning aero-push problem.
Amid all this, another player proved himself in Pontiacs in 1996. Bahari
Racing released Michael Waltrip after 1995 and signed ASA and Grand National
champ Johnny Benson. After a rough first half of 1996, Benson led at New
Hampshire, then finished fifth at Pocono and led the most laps at the Brickyard.
When the season was over Benson was Rookie of the Year.
Pontiac then added a key player to its lineup for 1997. To appease angry
Pontiac teams, GM switched Joe Gibbs Racing from Chevrolet, to give Pontiac some
more clout; JGR had won six times in Chevys but was not terribly high on their
engineering pole. The change worked better than many may have expected. With a
year’s work on their in-house engine shop, the JGR team began finishing high
week after week, and at Atlanta in November cashed in on the win.
Sophomore Johnny Benson and Bahari Racing then went to work on compiling
consistent finishes, and as the season went on the tandem appeared to get
stronger, ultimately coming just short of the top ten in season points. A major
blow was then absorbed when Benson left the team to go to Roush Racing for 1998.
Coming to the Pontiac camp for ’97 was a new team, Morton-Bowers Racing. With
engines and chassis from Hendrick Motorsports, the team struggled with driver
Derrike Cope but Cope pulled out a superb run at Atlanta and several other
respectable efforts.
Petty Enterprises, now with two cars, was also competitive but was struggling
to find the winning mix, and in September came Bobby Hamilton’s decision to
leave. The final quarter of the season proved the #43’s best as Hamilton bagged
three thirds and overhauled Dale Jarrett and Ricky Craven to win Rockingham;
Kyle dominated Dover but lost on fuel mileage and was also finishing in the top
ten with greater frequency.
With Hamilton’s departure the #43 hired a driver who’d driven for them in
1994 – John Andretti. Andretti fit back in with the Petty team well and despite
no wins finished 11th in points. He nearly gave Pontiac two drivers in the top
ten in points; Bobby Labonte led the way, winning at Atlanta again and then at
Talladega, and finishing in the top five in points.
Also clawing forward was Ernie Irvan, now the driver of the Morton-Bowers
Pontiac. Irvan won poles at Indy and Michigan and posted nearly a dozen top tens
before being injured at Talladega.
JGR had hired a well-known sprint-car and IRL driver for their Grand National
team for 1997-8, and in 1999 Tony Stewart moved to Winston Cup. Bill Davis
Racing, meanwhile, hired crew chief Tommy Baldwin for Ward Burton for 1999.
Kyle’s #45 team, meanwhile, moved from a mere satellite effort to a full second
team out of the Randleman, NC shops. Thus did 1999 become Pontiac’s finest year
since 1993. Andretti stormed to victory at Martinsville. Bobby Labonte won at
Dover, then swept both events at Pocono, then won a shootout at Michigan before
adding another shootout at Atlanta. Tony Stewart, meanwhile, exploded to victory
at Richmond, then bagged wins at Phoenix and Homestead. Ward Burton didn’t win,
but finished a stellar second at Vegas and was competitive all season.
Falling was Bahari Racing – sold to Boston businessman Jack Birmingham before
the end of the season – and Ernie Irvan. Irvan struggled in the #36 Pontiac and
was injured at Michigan during Grand National practice. The injury was a turning
point for the Irvan family, as Ernie came to the realization that his driving
days were over.
With the announcement of their switch to Dodge, the Petty team lost their
engineering help from Pontiac, and combined with Adam Petty’s death the team
suffered through a demoralizing 2000, but pulled off a strong September and
nearly won the wildest Talladega race ever seen that October. Less affected was
BDR, winning the Rebel 500 and contending for top tens almost every week.
Also coming forward was Tim Beverly’s Pontiac #10, and driver Johnny Benson.
Benson came within four laps of winning the Daytona 500, and despite controversy
with sponsor Lycos continued to run strong on a consistent basis. Beverly was
forced to sell his team, and Morton-Bowers purchased it, then sponsor Valvoline
bought into the team as an owner. RCA sponsored the car for the last half of
2000.
The real Pontiac power was JGR. Tony Stewart followed his 1999 with six wins
in 2000, and Bobby Labonte bagged four more to easily win the championship.
Things looked rosy for 2001 for JGR and Pontiac, but from the Daytona 500 on
things didn’t click as well as in 2000. Stewart did score at Richmond, Sears
Point, and Bristol, and Bobby Labonte won at Pocono and Atlanta.
But there was little to look forward to for 2002, despite three JGR wins in
the first third of the season. And the destiny of Pontiac in Winston Cup is
still in the air – not exactly a fitting tribute to a car make with a glorious
history.