1. 1985 Bill Elliott won plenty of races and money and even earned a couple really cool nicknames in 1985. But the big prize eluded the red-headed Georgia leadfoot that year. Elliott came into 1985 having won a total of four NASCAR Cup Series races during the previous two seasons, …
Read More »Beside the Rising Tide: If They Ain’t Cheering They Better Be Booing
Hey Boy Blue, can’t you hear all the noise? It’s for you, all the town’s waiting there. – Jeff Lynne It seems like ancient history now, but last week at Charlotte, Chase Elliott finally broke through with his first Cup win of 2020, shortly after edging out Kyle Busch for the Truck …
Read More »Driver vs. Driver Classic Matchups: Dale Earnhardt vs. Jeff Gordon
NASCAR’s last great rivalry couldn’t have been between two more different drivers. In one corner, there was Dale Earnhardt, the blue-collar Intimidator, who was flirting with Richard Petty’s all-time mark of seven championships in the early and mid-1990s. In the other, Wonderboy: Jeff Gordon, the polished and groomed youngster from …
Read More »Turn Back The Clock: 2001 NASCAR Season, Dark Times
NASCAR history can be measured in several ways, whether it be decades, the presence of certain drivers or various championship point formats. For myself and many others in the NASCAR industry, there is the way things were before 2001 and the way things were after it. It’s debatable, but I’d …
Read More »Turn Back the Clock: 1993 NASCAR Season
While the 1992 NASCAR season is seen as the most pivotal year in the modern era of NASCAR, what followed in 1993 set the stage for the next two decades of competition, thrusting the sport from burgeoning regional underground sport to one of national prominence. Key events, new tracks, personalities …
Read More »Beside the Rising Tide: Fire on Gander Mountain
NASCAR’s third level touring division, a.k.a. the Truck Series, came into being in 1995. It was a kinder, gentler era for the sanctioning body, when it seemed that they could do no wrong. It seemed if NASCAR had sanctioned a series for fat kids racing Marx Big Wheels around suburban …
Read More »Beside the Rising Tide: Counting on a Miracle
For a sport based on high speed and non-stop action, NASCAR racing can be incredibly frustrating sometimes. It is positively soul-sapping to watch two lines of race cars sitting tucked away under their covers in a heavy downpour, especially when it occurs just before the long-delayed start of our sport’s …
Read More »Beside the Rising Tide: Ready, Set, 2020…
I fear calling this time of year “late winter” might be overly optimistic when it comes to continued cold snaps and snow, but I have it on expert what remains of winter will be brief. If you can’t trust a groundhog, who can you trust? Let’s just say we’re in …
Read More »20 Years Later: Dale Earnhardt’s Big Brickyard Win Remembered
Indianapolis Motor Speedway has become a tough sell among NASCAR fans. Once considered a crown jewel on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series tour, the Brickyard 400 – this year referred to as the “Crown Royal Presents the Jeff Kyle 400 at the Brickyard” – has become nothing more than another …
Read More »Beside The Rising Tide: Remembering Davey Allison – Part 2
Editor's Note: For Part One of Matt's retrospective on Davey Allison, click "here.":https://frontstretch.com/mmclaughlin/34578/ Robert Yates Racing and the team's talented young driver Davey Allison made their official debut at the 1989 Daytona 500. Things got off to an inauspicious start. Davey was running well when Geoff Bodine got into his rear bumper and sent the No. 28 car spinning. The car rolled, but came down on all four wheels, and Allison limped off to the pits, where the crew was able to repair the car well enough to get him back out there for points. Allison finished 25th in that year's race.
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