(WGHP) — With the thousands of NASCAR races that have been run over the decades, can you really narrow the greatest race down to just one?
Rick Houston says it has been done.
Houston is the author of the book ‘NASCAR’s Greatest Race,’ which is about the final race of the 1992 season: the Hooter’s 500 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.
“The (Winston Cup title) came down to literally six different drivers having a mathematical chance at the championship,” Houston said.
But that wasn’t even the biggest story that day.
“Nascar was changing. I was leaving. Jeff Gordon was just coming in. One era quit. Another era started,” said NASCAR legend Richard Petty of his 1,184th and final NASCAR race.
But it wasn’t his best. The entire 1992 season wasn’t the King’s best.
“I think with all the hullabaloo being my last year, we spent so much time away from the shop and away from the race car. I don’t think I ever got into racing mode,” Petty said.
The race marks a major pivot point being not just Petty’s final race but also fellow legend Jeff Gordon’s first. Gordon quickly went on as something of a NASCAR pitchman that helped the sport go national.
“The role was completely shifted,” Houston said. “In Richard Petty’s day, if you had the talent, it didn’t really matter that much if you weren’t that great in front of the camera or with the media. The good ole boy network could golly-gee their way through an interview, and that was OK. But when Jeff Gordon came on the scene, he was photogenic. He was good with the press.”
Not that Petty wasn’t, but Gordon, who was born and raised in California and Indiana, helped move the sport more widely national, finishing a job Petty began by getting the sport’s first national sponsor when STP joined his team in the early 1970s.
Thirty years on, Petty remembers his final race fondly.
“I guess it was a pretty emotional deal,” Petty said. “You’re uptight to a certain extent, but I gave everybody a money clip with what position they qualified. After a while, I think I just relaxed and I said, ‘This is it. We’re going to get this thing over with then we’re going to go do something else.’”
His final race didn’t live up to his hopes. By lap 95, there was big trouble.
“Well, we had a little mix-up,” Petty said.
More than just a mix-up – a crash that left his #43 STP car on fire.
He did go out for a ceremonial last lap at the end of the race. Meanwhile, it was a big day for another driver.
See who that driver is and the other incidents that changed racing forever in this edition of the Buckley Report.