Race recap
There were 42 drivers; [3] 40 of them were American-born while Roy Smith and Trevor Boys were born in Canada.
Ricky Rudd started on the front row (second place) but retired from the lead with a blown engine in his last outing for Richard Childress in the number 3 Piedmont Airlines Chevrolet. [2] Dale Earnhardt would start his final NASCAR Winston Cup Series race in a Ford; bringing home Bud Moore's number 15 Wrangler Thunderbird with a top-5 finish. [2] James "J.D." Stacy would mark his final race as an official NASCAR team owner at this race. [2] Stacy came in with promises and a lot of cash but proved to be a charlatan. The Sterling Marlin and Trevor Boys battle for rookie of the year came down to the last race of the year with the Canadian Boys leading coming into the final race by approximately 16 points. Marlin came from behind to claim the honor after scoring a top-20 finish while mechanical problems in this final race doomed Boys' hopes. [2]
Buddy Arrington was the 23rd-place finisher after dropping out of the race on lap 109 due to wheel issues in his Chrysler Cordoba. Sumner McKnight finished in 19th place after completing 114 of the regulation laps. [2]
Bobby Allison secured his only Winston Cup Championship during the course of the race.
Jimmy Insolo, a West Series driver, drove a second car for DiGard Racing (which fielded Bobby Allison), as a start and park entry to help Allison's team (a common practice for the lead team to have the backup car prepared for a second driver in case their lead car failed, the driver can be changed before the start). It was pulled after one lap. Joe Ruttman blew his engine on lap 12 while Bill Schmidt would also have a blown engine on lap 13. Rick McCray's engine would expire on lap 29. Meanwhile, ignition problems would take out Ron Esau on lap 32 at the same time Ricky Rudd suffered from a faulty engine. The ignition on Roy Smith's vehicle stopped working on lap 36 while the throttle on Jim Bown's vehicle gave out on lap 37. Between lap 38 and lap 61, four drivers were forced to exit the race due to engine concerns. [2] [3]
Bill Elliott passed Benny Parsons on the Lap 115 restart that took place on the backstretch, taking the lead before the final safety car was called during Lap 117 for rain, meaning the cars would race back to the line (prohibited starting in 2003) and finished the final two laps under the safety car for a win in front of 24,000 spectators for his first-ever Cup Series victory. [2] This was Elliott's first Cup win. [2] Bill Elliott won this race driving a 1982 Ford Thunderbird as opposed to the slicker 1983 model; the team used the older car on road courses and short tracks this season to save costs and due to a parts shortage from Ford for the newest model. Elliott's first Cup and second-tier series wins were on road courses, as his first second-tier race win was at Watkins Glen International in 1993. In August 2018, his son Chase Elliott also scored his first Cup win, again on a former United States Grand Prix circuit, winning at Watkins Glen in 2018.
There were 13 lead changes and five caution flags for 26 laps; [3] making the race last three hours and fifteen minutes. [2] While the average speed of the race was 95.859 miles per hour (154.270 km/h), Darrell Waltrip qualified for the pole position with a speed of 116.782 miles per hour (187.942 km/h). [2] [3] The length of this race was 119 laps - the equivalent of 311.8 miles (501.8 km). [2] [3]
Jimmy Insolo, Doug Wheeler, Don Waterman, Pat Mintey, and Randy Becker would retire from NASCAR Cup Series racing after this event. [4]
Drivers who failed to qualify were: Bobby Hillin Jr. (#6), Dan Noble (#37), Tony Settember (#58), Harry Goularte (#17), Steve Pfeifer (#8), St. James Davis (#02), Mark Perry (#1) and Bob Kennedy (#94). [5]
This was the last race without Rusty Wallace until the 2006 Daytona 500.
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