ALL-STAR: ‘One Hot Night'

Sprint Cup

ALL-STAR: ‘One Hot Night’

The 1992 NASCAR All-Star Race was the first NASCAR race under the lights at Charlotte Motor Speedway...

Jim Pedley | http://www.RacinToday.com | Posted May 18, 2011 Charlotte, NC

Davey Allison drives under the lights in 1992 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. (Photo: NASCAR)

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The plan heading into the 1992 NASCAR All-Star Race, then known as The Winston, was to recreate memories. The kind of memories that virtually all racers and fans of the era treasured.

Memories of where and when it all started for them – at American short tracks on Saturday nights.

The 1992 race did that. Big time. But it also wound up creating new memories for those who competed and attended. Memories of the first night race in NASCAR history, and memories of on-track action that was Hollywood-script incredible.

Because of its place in history, and because of dramatic events which occurred on the Charlotte Motor Speedway track that night, the 1992 race checks in at No. 3 on the list of 10 best All-Star Races.

As with many of the creative things that went on at CMS over the years, the decision to light the place was former track president H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler’s.

His daughter, Patti Wheeler, who was involved in producing the race for TNN that night, says there is no doubt about Humpy’s motives for wanting to hold the All-Star Race under the lights.

“The whole ‘One Hot Night” concept in 1992 was short track Saturday night,” Patti said. “I haven’t produced every All-Star Race, but that’s always been a constant theme in any of the one’s I’ve produced is that short track Saturday night. Getting down to that grass roots excitement. It’s all about tonight. It doesn’t matter what you do next week, it’s all about tonight.”

The plan succeeded like crazy.

“It was cool,” Larry McReynolds, then the crew chief for driver Davey Allison said. “Because when you think about it, everybody in our sport, whether you’re a driver or crew chief or owner, a tire changer, you got your start racing on Friday or Saturday night under the lights at the local short track. And night racing is cool.”

As the cars rolled out onto the track that night, thousands of flash bulbs added to the artificial daylight.

And the sights and sounds produced an electricity that augmented what was being fed to the newly constructed lights.

“There’s something,” Patti Wheeler said, “and I’m not a scientist and I would never be able to prove it, but there is some particular kind of energy that someone needs to name, for having 150,000 people stuffed into a grandstand. There’s a particular kind of energy you can feel. And on All-Star night, that energy was exponential.”

Also new that night was the format of the race: It was 70 laps split into three segments.

Allison won the first 30-lap segment from the pole. Kyle Petty won the second 30-lap segment.

That set up the final 10-lap dash. And a beauty it was.

Dale Earnhardt led on the final lap. But coming up from behind was Petty. Petty clipped the black No. 3 car from behind, sending Earnhardt into the wall near Turn 3.

Allison, driving a Robert Yates Racing Thunderbird, eased past Petty on the move. But Petty was not done. He came back to get to Allison and just as they hit the finish line, their cars touched.

Allison got the victory but when his car spun hard into the outside wall, he was knocked unconscious.

“We were leaning on each other,” Petty would explain. “I tried to chop him off, but if I had cut across in front of him, I would have ended up in the infield. At the end, he cut on me as I would have on him. We clipped when we came across the line.”

In the grandstands, people went silent.

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“You could hear a pin drop,” Wheeler said. “Nobody had left. Everybody was standing on their feet at the end screaming and then it happened and it was just silence. You see them get Davey out, you see them put him in the chopper and you see that chopper lift off with that harvest moon in the background and it was just surreal.”

Allison didn’t regain consciousness until he was at the hospital.

Word is that when he did wake up, the first thing he asked if he had won.

He did. For the second straight year.

Also winning was NASCAR. Night races are now held regularly. This year, 11 Cup races will end under the lights.

The next will be the 2011 All-Star Race, scheduled for Saturday night – just like at short tracks from Irwindale to upstate New York.

Jim Pedley is a veteran, award-winning sports journalist who has worked at, among other places, the Boston Globe, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Kansas City Star. Pedley can be reached at jpedley@racintoday.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jim Pedley

RacinToday.com

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