North Wilkesboro was, for a long period of time, a fixture on the NASCAR circuit. In fact, North Wilkesboro was one of NASCAR’s original tracks, running Cup races until 1996 and promoting racing in one form or another until 2011. If you watched the eNASCAR iRacing Pro Invitational that aired on Fox during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the “season finale,” won by Denny Hamlin, was run on a virtual version of North Wilkesboro.
Back in 1987, NASCAR’s Winston Cup Series was able to run on the .625 mile North Wilkesboro Speedway for real, for the First Union 400. Bill Elliott grabbed the pole for the race, his first ever short track pole. Terry Labonte, still recovering from injuries from the Transouth 500 at Darlington, will be replaced by Brett Bodine on the pace laps. (They had Brett Bodine, Geoff Bodine, Todd Bodine…but who come they didn’t name one of their kids Beau Bodine?)
The Green Flag waves and once again it’s Elliott and Earnhardt taking the lead. Earnhardt actually gets loose in one corner but it doesn’t look like it’s hurt him much. Benny Parsons, Bobby Allison and Darryl Waltrip are the Top 5. Parsons has run well all season for Rick Hendrick but Allison and Waltrip are probably running the best they have all season.
Bobby Hillin, Jr. spins will spin and perhaps making contact with the wall. Before the caution comes out on Lap 11, Earnhardt takes the lead. The Top 5 remains as is.
Benny Parsons has started to fall back but he’ll fare better overall than Darrell Waltrip who spins trying to get below Bobby Allison, collected Geoff Bodine who in turn collets Ricky Rudd. At one point the cars coming through are four-wide looking for room to get by. Waltrip’s front tires are completely out of shape and having to drive through the infield to get to pit row.
We go back to green on Lap 25 and Earnhardt leads the way. In the pits, it’s determined that Waltrip broke a tire rod and that’s what caused the spin. His team has gotten it fixed and he’s back out several laps down.
While Earnhardt continues to lead, Bobby Allison passed Bill Elliott for second. A short time later, Rusty Wallace – who took Waltrip’s place in the Top 5, passes Elliott as well.
Phil Parson spins out and the yellow comes out again at Lap 49. The caution brings the leaders down pit row. The caution also lets me toss some trivia at you as I see a Lowe’s sign on the track wall. North Wilkesboro, N.C. was the birthplace of Lowe’s.
Phil Parsons may have brought out the caution but it’s brother Benny who benefits the most, as he has the lead when they go back green. Elliott is back to second, Earnhardt third and Wallace in fourth. In the pits, Bobby Allison and Alan Kulwicki both got trapped in the pits and a crew member for Kulwicki’s #7 team has been injured – not sure how severely.
Geoff Bodine, just behind Elliott, is a lap down but Earnhardt is treating him like they’re battling for position. He eventually does and now it’s Parsons, Elliott and Earnhardt nose to tail for about a lap and then Earnhardt (who has four fresh tires) moves around Elliott and Parsons quite quickly for the lead.
The #62 of Steve Christman has hit the wall to bring out a timely caution. Apparently, the injured crewman will need to be transported to hospital they needed to stop the race to get the ambulance out of the raceway.
The crew member injured, Kulwicki’s crew chief John Gunck (sp?) was hit by a tire. He was still talking to Alan and the crew via radio as he was being taken to the ambulance.
At Lap 73 (caution), Neil Bonnett has moved up to the Top 5. Further back in the field, it’s brother vs. brother as Geoff and Brett Bodine battling it out, with older brother Geoff prevailing. The younger Bodine should kicked his leg out of his leg. (I’m guessing that’s a reference no one reading will get!)
Elliott, Bonnett and Wallace battle for third and Neil Bonnett will take that position, with Wallace following along to put Elliott back to fifth. Earnhardt, meanwhile, leads at the Lap 100 mark and has put all but the Top 15 cars down a lap.
Jesse Samples, Jr., driving the #34, is smoking. Will that bring out a caution? Apparently not. Neil Bonnett’s crew chief is saying the team took only two tires so they will take on four the next pit stop. Meanwhile, Benny Parsons put on the wrong tires so they’ll correct that the next pit stop…which comes as Dave Marcis has spun.
On the restart, Earnhardt takes off, leaving the Alabama Gang duo of Bobby Allison and Neil Bonnett battling for second with Schrader moving from tenth to fourth, and Bill Elliott in fifth.
Over the next little while, Elliott and Schrader would fall back to battle for eighth, while Bonnett would take over second and Kyle Petty would be the 1987 version of Kevin “Where did he come from?” Harvick, moving up to third, and then second.
Earnhardt has stretched out to his lead so that only eleven cars are still on the lead lap, and he is in range to put several of those cars down a lap. There goes Morgan Shepherd and Ken Schrader, pole sitter and Bobby Allison who had been running second not too long ago, are in danger of going down a lap.
Schrader is now down a lap, as is Bobby Allison, and Elliott who had been battling Earnhardt for the lead is now losing the battle to stay on the lead lap at Lap 186.
As Earnhardt passes Rusty Wallace to put him a lap down, we hear that the Richard Childress Racing team doesn’t think the #3 car is running as well as it should be. Really? There are only five other cars on the lead lap less than halfway through the race and RCR isn’t happy with the car???
With 205 laps in the book, Earnhardt leads Kyle Petty, Neil Bonnett, Alan Kulwicki and Harry Gant in the Top 5. Richard Petty, in 6th, is the only other car on the lead lap.
Leonard Wood of the famed Wood Brothers and crew chief for Kyle Petty doesn’t feel like the #21 car, now about 14 seconds behind the #3, has anything for Earnhardt. Harry Gant, in the Top 5, has gone a lap down.
Geoff Bodine is trailing smoke and brings out the yellow flag on Lap 241, ending a run of 115 laps of green flag racing. The leaders (what’s left of them) head to pit road. We’ve talked in earlier blogs about the speeds the cars are travelling down pit road but compounding the danger is the pit crews jumping out in front of the cars as they enter the pits.
Geoff Bodine says there’s an oil leak and that’s what has caused an issue. He says there is a whole somewhere. He jokes “I don’t know if someone’s shooting at us or what.”
Earnhardt, Bonnet, Kyle Petty and Kulwicki are the only four cars on the lead lap. Earnhardt’s lead went from 14 seconds over Petty to a couple of car lengths on Bonnett.
After a long green flag run, we start getting a glut of cautions. Michael Waltrip, Morgan Shepherd and Larry Pearson (son of David Pearson) are involved in a collision.
Earnhardt comes in for a quick splash of fuel – he can go the rest of the way on fuel now – but somehow drops back to third. Kulwicki was second but Earnhardt has moved up to second to new leader Neil Bonnett. There are two lap cars (including Phil Parsons and Ricky Rudd) between Bonnett and Earnhardt.
Earnhardt dispatches the two lapped cars and the battle for first is on. It takes Earnhardt a while to get to Bonnett. Meanwhile, Kyle Petty is in third and starting to move into the title picture.
Earnhardt tries for the lead but hits the curb and falls back and into the clutches of Kyle Petty. Earnhardt recovers and eventually tracks down and muscles Bonnett aside for the lead, but Bonnett hangs tough. He does get a little loose and he almost gives up second to Petty.
At Lap 330, with Earnhardt ahead by about a second (eventually stretching it out to 5 seconds), it’s the Bonnett and Petty battle for second. Bonnett is getting loose but is able to hold off Petty for quite a while.
They go to break at Lap 362 and when they come back Larry Pearson has spun on the backstretch to bring out a caution. The leaders come down pit row for four tires and a fill up on fuel. Earnhardt retains the lead but Kyle Petty takes second and Bonnett is third.
Back to green on Lap 373 and Bonnett is not happy with the stagger on his tires and has fallen back from the battle for the lead. Petty meanwhile is looking forward to Earnhardt about three or four car lengths ahead.
With six laps to go, Earnhardt has a second and a half lead. Brett Bodine, subbing for Terry Labonte, is at least a lap down but is in eighth position, impressive since this is his second Cup start and started in the back.
As Earnhardt wins the First Union 400, Petty finishes second and Bonnett holds off Kulwicki for third. There’s a bit of a traffic jam on pit row as the cars need to be checked by officials first.
This is Earnhardt’s fourth win of the season of six races. In the post-race interview, he warns that later in the season it will get tougher as the other teams start to come together.
We will go to another short track: Bristol for the Valleydale Meats 500 next.
johnmilner.ca 