It’s BRISTOL BABY! And it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these but I figured what better place to spend a Saturday night than Bristol Motor Speedway in 1987.
After an intro showing some of the chaos that Bristol can produce, we are reminded that Dale Earnhardt, starting third, is going for his third consecutive Cup series win. Bob Jenkins and the late Larry Nuber (who died of a stroke in 2000) are on commentary. (Seriously, when is Ken Squier coming back?)
Harry Gant is on the pole but hasn’t had much success. Last year’s winner Rusty Wallace sits on the outside pole. Terry Labonte, still injured, is replaced by Brett Bodine. Labonte says he feels a lot better but will wait until Martinsville to make his full-time return.
A fan throws a beer can on the track so the start is delayed. As they continue to take pace laps, you realize just how different 1987 Bristol is from The Last Great Coliseum of 2021. Wallace gets the lead almost as soon as the green flag drops.
Within 8 laps, the leaders are onto lapped traffic which doesn’t give Gant as much of an opportunity to close in on Wallace as expected. Instead, it allows Earnhardt to catch the lead duo, with Geoff Bodine in fourth.
Gant gets loose and gets sideway and falls back to fourth. The replay shows some contact with a certain #3 car. There is speculation that perhaps Gant got on the brakes harder than Earnhardt expected.
Traffic continues to play a role, as Wallace gets some distance over Earnhardt but gets caught up with Jimmy Means, allowing Earnhardt to get back to his rear bumper.
Shortly after getting passed by Bill Elliott, Ken Schrader starts having issues, losing several more spots. He looks to head to pit road but ducks back on the race track at the last moment, possibly due to water on the track. He makes the stop on the next lap. Turns out he had a cut tire.
Earnhardt is side by side with Wallace but as they come up on Brett Bodine, the #3 gets loose and loses some momentum. Meanwhile the #64 of Jerry Cranmer had a suspension problem and that brings out the caution. This brings in most of the leaders to the pits. Lots of changes to the running order, and Phil Parsons goes for a pretty harmless spin coming down pit road.
Dave Marcis, who did not pit, leads the field to green. Brett Bodine gets back on the lead lap. Morgan Shepherd is the first of the drivers who did pit. Earnhardt passes Bonnett and Shepherd for second and tracks down Marcis.
However, before Earnhardt can pass Marcis, the caution comes out for debris. Unfortunately for Marcis, he didn’t know he was on the lead lap and went to join the tail end of the field. What happens? NASCAR black flags him for not heeding the caution.
Schrader, Marcis and Brett Bodine under the caution. Meanwhile, Elliott has got some damage to the nose of the car but he stays out, saying the handling on the car is okay. Earnhardt, (the only driver to lead a lap in every race so far in 1987) Geoff Bodine and Wallace are your top 3.
Earnhardt starts going high in the corners. He loses two spots and heads to pit road to get the tire situation looked at and goes a lap down.
Bobby Allison (a lap down) and leader Geoff Bodine make contact. Allison hits the wall and Bodine spins out. That brings everyone save Bill Elliott to the pits under the caution on Lap 75. Allison takes the car behind the wall and climbs out. The crew will continue to work on the car.
Back on track, Elliott retains the lead while Earnhardt attempts to get back on the lead lap. Another caution – this time for debris. As they go back green, Earnhardt gets back on the lead lap and leads the field, with Elliott the actual leader.
The commentators talk about Morgan Shepherd having a bit of a handling problem and washing up the track but that’s okay as Shepherd likes to run up there. There’s a battle between him and Dave Marcis, who overcame the early penalty, for third. The two cars touch and that allows Marcis to take the position and Shepherd falls back to battle Kyle Petty for fourth.
Richard Petty and Harry Gant make some contact but the two keep their cars straight. Ken Schrader is also now back on the lead lap as he passes Elliott. I wonder if Elliott staying out is catching up to him. The commentators do say that for many they are just taking it easy in the early goings. It could be that, save those cars a lap down, most are content to just stay behind Elliott.
Of course, no one told Geoff Bodine that as he makes his way through traffic, eventually passing his brother for second. The lap car of Michael Waltrip causes some of the cars behind Bodine to have a scary moment but everyone makes it through okay. Schrader got back on the lead lap but has to pit again due to a tire going down.
Jimmy Means hits the wall and the leaders, including Bill Elliott, hit the pits. Under caution, they talk to Rusty Wallace about his concerns about the weather. Wallace’s response is that his only concern is how much champagne he’s going to drink in Victory Lane. (Now there’s a soundbite!)
Before they go back green, they provide an update on Tim Richmond and his battle with “pneumonia” and a recent test at Darlington.
When Means hit the wall, he dislodged some concrete so there’s clean-up involved. Funny pre-race interview with Ken Schrader is shown about a wreck in the Saturday Busch race, won by Kyle Busch. Oh wait, no. Schrader says that due to the banking, you had to look out of the roof area of the car “and you can’t see there because it’s metal there.”
The yellow lasts 20 laps and the commentators are in mid-conversation when suddenly the cars accelerate and Bill Elliott leads as they go to green. Elliott remains in the lead with a lap-down Ken Schrader between the #9 Ford and Geoff Bodine, as Earnhardt starts to make his way towards the front.
Then, a multi-car crash involving Darrell Waltrip, Benny Parsons, Dave Marcis, Sterling Marlin, Harry Gant and others. Bob Jenkins says it sounded like a bomb going off. Marcis ran over debris and blew a tire and then Marcis and Parsons hit the wall. Marcis clipped Waltrip as he was going by. Phil Parsons, Alan Kulwicki and Richard Petty drove through the wreck.
To top it all off, it begins to rain with 80 laps to go before the halfway mark to make the race official. Michael Waltrip is shown the black flag under caution for reasons no one explains. Back to green and Bill Elliott no longer has Ken Schrader between him and Geoff Bodine, Rusty Wallace and Dale Earnhardt is in the hunt as well. Darrell Waltip has a major tire rub and gets black flagged as well.
There is talk that the race could be called as early as 70 laps from now. And no Phil Parsons, who avoided the wreck earlier, has now hit the wall. This brings cars to pit road for what could be a final pit stop. Wallace takes a fuel-only stop and gets out quick. Shepherd (or was it Sterling Marlin?), Alan Kulwicki and others have stayed out and they have the lead.
But it’s a quick run -so quick they have to temporarily interrupt Benny Parson’s update on his condition – as Bobby Hillin, Jr. has an issue and Michael Waltrip spins. Turns out Benny had run over debris and blew a tire as well. As it turns out, Bobby Allison is back out on the track. Kulwicki’s run at the front is brief as he gets black flag for not slowing down enough under the caution.
Lap 199 sees the race back to green and Sterling Marlin is the leader. Ken Schrader, down as much as two laps at time, is behind Marlin trying to get back on the lead lap. The battle for second rages between Earnhardt and Wallace, with the #3 Chevy getting the advantage.
Eddie Bierschwale hits the wall and is almost clipped by several other drivers as he came down the banking but no incident. Wallace pits and there is definitely something wrong as the hood is up and one crew member jumps into the car, but it’s not an overly lengthy stop, considering. They changed ignitions which they hope will fix the problem.
NASCAR has gone to several car owners, including Richard Childress, to ask their drivers about the racing conditions. Childress says Earnhardt was busy racing but says if there had been an issue, he “woulda hollered!”
Lap 217 sees the green flag, with Marlin in the lead and Shrader in between first and Earnhardt in second. Earnhardt passes Shrader and sets his sights on Marlin. Meanwhile, Geoff Bodine comes into the picture, running third but perhaps in position to take the lead.
Lap 249 has all three leaders, nose to tail. Okay, so earlier on, there was some discussion of an ambulance in the infield. They finally address the issue properly, as a crewman for Phil Parsons was hit. The crewman turns out to be none other than….Andy Petree. Yeah, same Andy Petree who would be the crew chief for Parsons, and then win two championships for a guy you might have heard of: Dale Earnhardt! Today Andy Petree is the competition director at RCR. Petree had a sprain and bruised ankle and is already back to the track.
As the race becomes official, the two leaders try to pass a lapped car (#81 Mike Porter?). Earnhardt makes contact with Marlin and sends him into the wall. Behind them, Geoff Bodine and Schrader spin as well. Initially, they were ready to blame Earnhardt. One replay shows Marlin was trying to pinch down Earnhardt. Another shows that Earnhardt may have drifted up into Marlin’s left rear.
Earnhardt has to pit to repair damage under the caution. Marlin is done for the day but it appears Bodine and Schrader will be able to continue. Kyle Petty (running the #21 for the Wood Brothers) will be the leader, pending any pit stops he chooses to make.
Apparently, NASCAR has given Earnhardt his second of three possible strikes. If he gets into any more trouble, he’ll be called to the pits for a “talking to.” The red flag has been put out for rain.
At 265 laps, Kyle Petty is the leader as the entire field sits on pit road. Jenkins tells us the rain is coming down so hard they’ve pulled off the trucks they used to dry the track.
When the coverage comes back, it’s green and lap 332. Petty’s shot at winning the race because of rain is gone and Bill Elliott has resumed the lead. Shepherd is running second. He tries to take the lead but gets loose and has to fall back.
It’s a Larry Mac sighting. The crew chief for Shepherd says the car is handling a lot better and he’d like to see if go green to the end. Shepherd has some tire smoke but is right there to challenge Elliott for the lead. The two come up on Waltrip, and Elliott has to check up and that allows Shepherd to take the lead.
Earnhardt had been seventh before the red flag and is just now starting to move forward, passing Richard Petty and challenging Kyle Petty for fourth.
Geoff Bodine and Dale Earnhardt are deemed the two strongest cars and eventually the two pass Elliott and start heading towards Shepherd. As they catch Shepherd, Earnhardt passes Bodine and then, shortly afterwards, passed Shepherd. Shepherd just as quickly drops to third.
There is a Petty vs. Petty battle back in the pack, and the elder King scrapes the wall but with little ill effect, save Harry Gant is now in the picture.
The caution is out as Geoff Bodine, running second, spun out. Looks like the upper grove is quite wet and that’s what caused the spin. As the leaders pit, Schrader has made up a lap and is back on the lead lap and in 7th.
We go back to green with just over 90 laps to go. Bodine is back in the Top 5. Richard Petty gets loose and loses three spots. However, he manages to move up and is back challenging and indeed passing son Kyle. He continues to move up to challenge Bodine.
It appears that Petty moves up and clips Bodine sending him into the path of Ken Schrader and both are taken out. Ricky Rudd manages to scoot by. After the wreck, Bodine says the move that took him out was an “Earnhardt move” and says he might have to get tough.
There’s another incident where Morgan Shepherd and Kyle Petty got together and spun the two cars out. Bill Elliott managed to get through the spinning cars but Shepherd goes a lap down.
With a dozen laps to go, Earnhardt is first, Petty is second and Jimmie Johnson is…not in this race. (Sorry, going for a 7-time champion thread.) Petty is not able to make it to Earnhardt.
Dale Earnhardt will come to the checkered flag and collect his fifth win of the year.
johnmilner.ca 