NASCAR’s Greatest Comebacks
Down 24-7, and they won 36-33.
Down 38-14 in the third, and they won 39-38.
The Pittsburgh Steelers and San Francisco Forty-Niners delivered two of the
most amazing competitions in NFL history. For the Steelers in particular, this
comeback personified the comeback that has been their 2002 season and also the
career of QB Tommy Maddox. For the Niners, their comeback brought comparisons of
Jeff Garcia to Joe Montana and Steve Young, and also reminded fans of their
dynasty years.
Such comebacks earn their own place in NFL Films’ always-spectacular library
and remind fans of the truth of the cliché of never say die.
In NASCAR, comebacks also comprise a special place in the sport’s history, be
they particular races or championship seasons. A look at some of the greatest of
all:
1965 WORLD 600 – Not all comebacks ultimately end in victory. Such was the
case with Earl Balmer. Falling four laps down, Balmer fought hard, got cautions,
and erased a six-mile deficit. He stormed to catch Fred Lorenzen, who’d fought
for over ten laps door to door with Darel Dieringer in a battle Lorenzen said
afterward was the hardest race he’d run. Balmer caught Lorenzen late, but
skidded through Three and could not take the win.
1974 NATIONAL 500 – Sometimes both the race winner and the runner-up have to
make up huge gaps. For David Pearson and Richard Petty, the 1974 National 500
was such a race. They timed on the front row while Buddy Baker timed third, but
spun and got sent to the rear because Bud Moore’s crew changed tires from what
they’d qualified on. Baker passed nearly half the field in the first two laps,
but collided with Dick Brooks in the tri-oval, spun, and collected ten cars;
Neil Castles and Jim Vandiver smashed open the inside guardrail while Marty
Robbins smashed the tri-oval wall and needed 32 stitches in his face.
Cautions galore kept the field bunched up, and the lead changed back and
forth. Cale Yarborough, needing the win to catch Petty in points, stormed past
A.J. Foyt for the lead. Petty caught Cale and the two fought door to door for
the lead lap after lap, even with Petty skating sideways through the corners.
Pearson clawed up the outside into the lead but had to fight Donnie Allison for
a number of laps.
Then Pearson blew a tire at Lap 114 under green and lost two laps. For the
next 100 laps Donnie and Bobby Allison fought with Yarborough for the lead,
while cautions allowed Pearson to make up his laps, and he returned to the lead
with 134 laps to go.
Petty, meanwhile, brushed the wall and broke a hood latch, hurting his
Dodge’s aerodynamics, then he lost a cylinder and stalled the car on a green
flag stop, just as Cale pitted with the engine overheating; Cale fell out and
lost all chance at the 1974 title, while Petty lost two laps after Johnny
Rutherford blew up and spun. Petty made up a lap, got another yellow, then made
up the other lap before Grant Adcox blew up, spun, and got T-boned by Ramo Stott
in Four.
From there Pearson stormed into an authoritative lead, while Petty blasted
into second on seven cylinders. They finished 1-2 after 47 lead changes, with
Darrell Waltrip edging the Allison brothers for third.
1975 DELAWARE 500 – Richard Petty had all but clinched the 1975 title by the
Delaware 500, and in the race itself he put the entire field a lap down by Lap
180 and had a two lap lead with 150 to go, but when a back marker blew up ahead
of him, debris broke a tie rod and Petty lost eight laps getting repairs.
>From six laps down to the field, Petty started unlapping himself. Lennie
Pond blew up and then Cale soured in the final lap, by which time Petty had
passed the field to get on the tail end of the lead lap. Controversy then
erupted when Buddy Arrington, who’d recently purchased a transporter from Petty,
stalled in Three with 15 to go, drawing the fifth yellow of the day. Petty won
handily, while runner-up Dick Brooks huffed, "I guess Arrington needed that
truck paid for."
CALE YARBOROUGH AT DOVER – Cale Yarborough established himself and Junior
Johnson’s #11 as title favorite in 1976, and by that season’s Delaware 500 had
won six races. Cale led most of the first 177 laps but was penalized after
running over an air hose; he lost a lap but erased it before a coil wire broke
and Cale lost two laps getting it fixed. Under green Cale surged forward and
erased both laps, winning by seven seconds.
And for a sequel, Cale came back for the 1977 Mason-Dixon 500 and collided
with Earl Canavan at 125 laps; his rear bumper was dislodged and Junior Johnson
tore it off bodily. 45 laps later a shock broke off the chassis and Cale was
black flagged to get it replaced. Now two laps down to David Pearson, Cale
erased the gap under green and caught a caution when Morgan Shepherd spun at Lap
377. Cale and David fought door to door for the lead for over 20 laps before
Cale won handily after yet another big comeback.
1979 SEASON – The Daytona 500 saw two big comebacks, all for naught as Cale
Yarborough and Donnie Allison crashed on the final lap and Richard Petty took
the win over Darrell Waltrip. By the Pocono 500 Waltrip was handily in the
Winston Cup lead. He pitted late under yellow and wound up finishing seventh, a
move that cost him 19 points.
It proved fatal, for after the Talladega 500 Waltrip had a 229 point lead but
Richard Petty won on the last lap at Michigan while Waltrip blew up and got a
new engine in 13 minutes. Petty fought Donnie and Cale for the win at the
Delaware 500 while Waltrip hammered the wall and lost nearly half his point
lead; he lost more after blowing up at Martinsville (this time DiGard changed
engines in 11 minutes), then still more after punting Bobby Allison and getting
slammed head-on into the wall at North Wilkesboro. When Petty won the American
500 at Rockingham he took the point lead, lost it at the Dixie 500, then won the
title in a five-car shootout at Ontario, winning by 11 points, the closest
margin the sport had ever seen – so close the late stop at Pocono for Waltrip
proved to be the decisive move.
WALTRIP IN 1981-5 – Waltrip now drove for Junior Johnson and in June 1981 was
341 points out of the lead, but with a win at Riverside managed to erase the gap
to 206 points by the Firecracker 400. From there it was a steady chipping
process; Waltrip won at Nashville, Pocono, Bristol, then four straight in late
September through October. By the Dixie 500 Waltrip had overhauled Bobby Allison
and ultimate won his first title.
The 1982 season was another huge comeback, as Waltrip trailed Bobby Allison
by 147 points after Allison won the Capital City 400 at Richmond. Waltrip then
won four of the next five races and overpowered Bobby to win the title again.
But Waltrip’s most improbable comeback was in 1985. Bill Elliott had
completely dominated 1985 – even to erasing a two-lap deficit at Talladega under
green – and was 206 points ahead after the Southern 500. Waltrip won at Richmond
and Elliott finished two laps down in 12th, and from there the comeback was on;
Elliott blew up at Dover, finished 17th at Martinsville, and was 20th at North
Wilkesboro. Waltrip iced the title when Elliott’s transmission split at
Riverside, and Waltrip won by 101 points – the most lopsided point margin since
1978.
TIM RICHMOND AT POCONO – Driving for Hendrick Motorsports, Tim Richmond
blossomed into NASCAR’s driving force in 1986 after a very slow first third of
the season. His win at the Pocono 500 was the breakthrough; his win in the
Firecracker 400 was the second blow of his season romp.
But it was the Summer 500 at Pocono that cemented Richmond’s legend. After
fog delayed the start for two hours, Richmond dueled with Geoff Bodine, Harry
Gant, and others for the event’s first half. Blown engines for Bill Elliott and
Buddy Baker caused cautions, while Jerry Cranmer’s spin set up a shootout after
Lap 115. Neil Bonnett had the lead on the restart and Richard Petty stormed to
second on the outside of Bobby Allison in the Tunnel Turn, while Bodine and
Richmond caught Petty and took second and third. Bodine then dove under Bonnett
in One, but Richmond then dove three wide down the Long Pond Straight, just as
Jim Sauter tagged the wall in One; Richmond shot sideways in the Tunnel Turn,
spun into Petty’s path, and the two slammed doors. Petty vaulted atop the
infield guardrail while Richmond spun through traffic and came to a stop.
Richmond was now a lap down with a heavily crinkled left side. On the next
restart Ricky Rudd got a lap back, just before Morgan Shepherd got shoved the
the apron of the Tunnel Turn by Darrell Waltrip and collected six other cars,
injuring Bonnett. Richmond fought it out with Waltrip, Cale Yarborough, and
Geoff Bodine; Cale’s blown engine sent Dale Earnhardt crashing in Two and got
Richmond his lap back, as NASCAR informed teams that pending darkness would end
the race at Lap 150.
From there Richmond stormed through the field, caught race leader Bodine, and
the two were wheel to wheel on the final lap when Rudd dove three wide off Three
and they hit the stripe in a photo finish; Richmond won by the extra inches of
his Chevrolet’s air dam and Rudd had to settle for second.
When Richmond was felled by illness after 1986 there was concern that he
could not race again, but despite being "a very sick man" (the words
of his doctor, David Dodson), Richmond returned to racing at The Winston of 1987
and finished in the top five. He then started at Pocono in June, timing third.
Richmond’s transmission started sticking and he lost a lap getting it fixed, but
got it back and won the Pocono 500 going away.
The win was his record-setting fourth at Pocono, and would tragically prove
to be his penultimate.
1991 OLD DOMINION 500 – Harry Gant had had a respectable 1991 season by the
Southern 500, but from there his season became the stuff of legends. He won the
Southern 500, then used Terry Labonte as a pick to pass Davey Allison and win
Richmond. At the Delaware 500 Gant romped after a huge wreck wiped out most of
the front runners.
For the Virginia 500 at Martinsville, Gant took the lead at Lap 196 and led
until Rusty Wallace blasted him into the wall at lap 376. Despite heavy damage,
Gant clawed through the field from 12th and overhauled Brett Bodine for his
fourth straight win.
1992 SEASON – 1992 turned into a season of comebacks. First Davey Allison
came back after a hard Bristol wreck injured his shoulder and won at North
Wilkesboro, then he came back from bruised ribs in a hard Martinsville crash to
monopolize Talladega, then in the World 600 he came back from a concussion,
bruised legs, and a bruised lung in a fiery last lap melee in The Winston to
finish 4th in the 600. The 600 also saw Ernie Irvan’s comeback from two laps
down with an engine that Ernie said afterward "ran like a V-6 engine down
the straight-aways." Irvan finished second after Dale Earnhardt took the
lead via speeding on pit road, an infraction that earned no penalty.
Davey Allison led the points and dominated the Summer 500 at Pocono, but a
Darrell Waltrip cheap shot sent him tumbling violently off Two and he suffered a
broken collarbone and bones in his wrist and right forearm. Bobby Hillin drove
relief at Talladega and Dorsey Schroeder at Watkins Glen, but by the American
500 at Rockingham Allison appeared beaten.
For Alan Kulwicki, the title also appeared out of reach. He trailed by 278
points after crashing at Dover, but had managed to close the gap; he still
trailed Elliott by 85 points after Rockingham with Davey Allison 15 points ahead
of Kulwicki, in second place. But at Phoenix it all turned upside down as
Elliott blew early, finished 31st, and saw Allison win and Kulwicki finish
fourth. Suddenly Allison led by 30 and Kulwicki was ten ahead of Elliott in
second.
It all came down to the Dixie 500 at Atlanta, and several crashes (including
a fiery multi-car melee involving Richard Petty in his final race) plus some
hard racing made for a terribly suspenseful 500 miles. Davey Allison needed a
top five to ice the crown, but when Ernie Irvan crashed he slammed into Allison
and the title chase was turned upside down yet again.
Kulwicki had only high gears in his transmission, but he led 103 laps, timed
his final green flag stop to clinch five bonus points for most laps led, and
finished second in the race to Elliott, but won the title by ten points, the
most amazing comeback and the closest title chase in NASCAR history.
TERRY LABONTE IN 1996 – Terry Labonte was strong in the Hendrick Motorsports
#5 from his debut in the car in 1994. Labonte had won seven races by September
1996, but hopes for a championship seemed over after a poor finish at the
Delaware 500.
But from some 100 points down, Labonte stormed to a clutch win at Charlotte’s
National 500 while Gordon broke in mid-race. A strong finish at Rockingham gave
Terry the point lead. He then broke his wrist in a wreck at Phoenix during
practice, but led during the day and finished third. With another solid run at
Atlanta, Terry won the Winston Cup title, his second career and first since
1984.
2000 WINSTON 500 – NASCAR’s greatest race. Belatedly addressing the weakness
of the draft, NASCAR implemented a new aero package, a roof spoiler and wicker
on the rear spoiler, all designed to blast open more air and allow easier
passing. The new package worked better than expected.
The 500 was a shootout almost from the opening green flag, and the lead
changed hands back and forth. Jeff Gordon started last after blowing out a shock
during practice, and stormed into the lead on Lap 13; from there he battled Dale
Earnhardt for some 20 laps. Dave Marcis stormed into the lead on Lap Two and
fought for the lead until breaking after halfway.
The biggest fight erupted after 300 miles as Ken Schrader, Bobby Hamilton,
Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and others went at it three abreast ten rows deep for
lap after lap; ultimately the lead changed hands 49 times among 21 drivers.
In the final laps Junior led with Bobby Labonte second; Earnhardt Senior was
mired in 16th and couldn’t go anywhere. But with four to go Mike Skinner and
John Andretti stormed to the lead; Andretti fired into the lead at Lap 185 and
the field was five abreast for the lead as Earnhardt Senior roared forward;
unable to pass third-racing Andretti, Earnhardt punted him sideways and out of
the lead draft, then stormed alongside Skinner. At the white flag Junior popped
Skinner, then both sideswiped each other at the stripe as Senior was long gone
to what turned out to be his last win, and only win in the Winston 5.
So has it been with NASCAR’s comeback races. Seeing some more great comebacks
can make for a great 2003 season.