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ALL-STAR Challenge History
Written by: Tom Jensen   
05/12/2007
Charlotte, NC
 

In its storied history, the NASCAR Nextel All-Star Challenge has produced a host of remarkable races. Here are the top five as selected by a panel of SPEED experts.

RACE NO. 1, 1987:
WATCH THE 1987 ALL-STAR MOMENT! CLICK HERE! ยป More Photos


Known forever as "the pass in the grass," the third running of what then known as The Winston was the most controversial to date. Back in Charlotte after a disastrous one-year visit to Atlanta, the all-star race saw Dale Earnhardt post a controversial victory after bumping incidents with Geoff Bodine and Bill Elliott, the later of which sent Earnhardt through the infield grass although he maintained the lead and didn't pass anyone in the grass. Regardless, the phrase "pass in the grass" was born and it stuck.

Tempers flared after the race. "Ernie (Elliott) walked right up to me and said, 'That's really chicken s***," said Earnhardt's car owner Richard Childress. "I told him if he wanted to keep his face looking the way it did now, he better get the hell out of my pit stall."

Bill Elliott was angry afterwards, too. "If a man has to run over you to beat you, it's time for this stuff to stop. What he did wasn't right. When a man pulls over and lets you by and then tries to run you into the wall, I'd say that was done deliberately. … If somebody doesn't do something about this, we're coming back next week and we'll see what happens."

"This whole deal is between me and Bill, and it has nothing to do with our teams," Earnhardt said. "We knocked each other around, but it's all over now as far as I am concerned. But if Bill still wants to do something about it, then I'll stand flat-footed with him any day."



RACE NO. 2, 1989:
WATCH THE 1989 ALL-STAR MOMENT! CLICK HERE! ยป More Photos


Rusty Wallace nudged leader Darrell Waltrip as the pair raced to the white flag, sending Waltrip spinning and Wallace to victory lane. "It was an ugly, ugly win," Waltrip chirped. "I hope he chokes on the $200,000, that's all I can tell him. He knocked the hell out of me."

"We just ran out of room," Wallace replied. "I got under him and we touched. I backed out of the throttle and he spun. I didn't intentionally hit him."

Waltrip, however, wasn't finished talking. "A lot of guys let greed overcome speed, and that's what happened today. I got spun out. A guy drove down underneath me and drove up into me and spun me out. It was blatant. I had him pretty well covered. I just didn't want to make a mistake, but I guess I made one, letting him get up there."







RACE NO. 3, 1992:
WATCH THE 1992 ALL-STAR MOMENT! CLICK HERE! ยป More Photos


With the race run at night under the lights for the first time, Davey Allison won by a few feet as he and Kyle Petty crashed their way to the checkered flag, with Allison spending the night in the hospital with a concussion.

"The wreck at the end was just as much my fault as it was his," Petty said. "We were leaning on each other. 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."

Dale Earnhardt was also involved in the wild racing, which led to the last-lap crash. "I can't wait until next year," Earnhardt said. "I turned Kyle down where he was dragging and sparking. He went into the corner and tried to take what
was his. That's all there was to it-good, hard racing. That's what it's all about. It was the last lap."






RACE NO. 4, 1995:
WATCH THE 1995 ALL-STAR MOMENT! CLICK HERE! ยป More Photos


Jeff Gordon avoided a multi-car accident and won The Winston; however, tempers flared among those not as lucky as the driver of the No. 24 Chevrolet.

"We drove into turn one hard and Darrell (Waltrip) kind of took the air off me," Gordon said. "Then Dale came on strong and they both went by me. I was caught in the middle and it wasn't looking good going down the backstretch. After they wrecked, I had to worry about Sterling."

"I got clear of Jeff," Waltrip said. "And Dale came up and he just kept coming and coming and coming and finally it broke loose. Then bam! He was going to run me out of room and I guess he thought I would lift. Guess what? He was wrong. Maybe I should have backed off and let Dale dive up in front of me, but you can't do that in the Winston."

Jimmy Spencer and Ken Schrader were involved in an accident early in the race. "I appreciate all R.J. Reynolds does for racing," said Schrader. "But those people have got to wake up and look at that idiot they have in their car. He (Spencer) ain't doing them no good."

Replied Spencer, "You mess with the bull and you get the horns."



RACE NO. 5, 2000:
WATCH THE 2000 ALL-STAR MOMENT! CLICK HERE! ยป More Photos


Dale Earnhardt was furious with Lowe's Motor Speedway President H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler, who picked Earnhardt's son, Dale, Jr., to win NASCAR's all-star event, just weeks after he became eligible by winning his first points race at Texas Motor Speedway. The elder Earnhardt was afraid Wheeler had put too much pressure on his son, who was a rookie in the Nextel Cup Series.
But Earnhardt, Jr. justified Wheeler's faith when passed Dale Jarrett with three laps to go and drove off to what he still considers his most important victory. "That win here in the all-star race was, and still is, the favorite moment of my career-being in victory lane with my dad," said Earnhardt, Jr., who put a Dale Earnhardt, Inc. Chevrolet in victory lane.
"The wins that I had before, he (Dale Earnhardt) would come in and shake everybody's hand and take off. That was the only victory lane that he stood in the entire time-he was there for the whole half-hour, 45 minutes we were there, even as the car was taken off for inspection he continued to stay," Earnhardt Jr. recalled. "He was talking to his brother, Danny, and the guys on the team. He was really enjoying not only the father-son relationship, but I think he was enjoying the fact that he had built a team that was the winner of the All-Star race."