Around the 100-lap mark, Elliott had charged his way back up to the lead pack, and worked his way onto Yarborough’s back bumper.
“It took more time to diagnose it than it took to fix it,” Dan told us. When the race rolled off on Sunday, everyone expected it to be the Bill Elliott show. As Elliott drove away into the history books, Yarborough and Kyle Petty fought for second. Bill Elliott Racing. Neither, however, was easy as evidenced by the lengths teams went to during that record-setting qualifying session at Talladega. Bill Elliott turned in a historic performance in the 1985 Winston 500 at Talladega, Ala. Bill Elliott set his NASCAR speed record at Talladega Superspeedway in 1987. Ernie told the crew to take their time and get everything right on the pit stop. At the behest of the GM teams, led in a chorus of whining by then two-time Winston Cup champ Darrell Waltrip, NASCAR raised the height of the Fords by half an inch, and also lowered the GM cars by half an inch. “You still had to do everything you could to … Later in the 1996, Elliott suffered effects after an accident at Talladega earlier in the year and, Elliott missed two races and was replaced by Tommy Kendall and Bobby Hillin, Jr.. The Elliott crew jumped up and down and cheered. The first yellow flag of the event flew 14 laps later when Earnhardt’s engine came apart off of the fourth turn. His stellar, come from behind win in the Winston 500 truly marked him as Awesome Bill From Dawsonville. As Yarborough and Kyle Petty fought for the top spot, Elliott started reeling off laps in excess of 205 mph while the rest of the field turned laps between 195 – 200 mph. “It was truly amazing that we could even get a wrench in there with the motor in to tighten that line.”. Bill Elliott would move on to win by 1.72 seconds, with Kyle holding off Yarborough for third. Today's memory flashes us back to 1985, when Bill Elliott performed what is considered the greatest comeback in NASCAR history when he and his iconic No. The was run at a record speed of 186.288 mph, nine miles an hour faster than the fastest race in history to that point. “My thoughts are the same as they’ve been about that whole 1985 season,” Dan Elliott told us. Three years later, NASCAR mandated restrictor plates to slow the cars at Daytona and Talladega, doing away with the high speeds at the big tracks. Elliott and his team showed a little of what they had on pole day. Leading up to the event, NASCAR had been looking for a way to slow down Bill Elliott and his Coors sponsored Ford Thunderbird. On the restart, Elliott would stay right on Yarborough’s bumper, letting him lead. This was usually Yarborough’s game, making the leader wonder when the pass was coming. “I think it was Waddell (Wilson, Yarborough’s crew chief) that told Cale to latch on to him. The fans went nuts in the stands. “The car just kept on holding together,” Elliott told reporters after the race. There were only three cars on the lead lap. My job is to make my race car as competitive as possible.”, “We didn’t have a mindset,” Dan Elliott said recently. Elliott was also off sequence on pit stops, which helped the team a little to catch up. The Coors-Melling T-bird went out and shattered the world’s speed record for the track with an amazing 209.398, breaking Yarborough’s old record of 202.692, almost a seven-mile an hour difference. While his car was running strong, Elliott stayed near the front, trading the top spot with the Fords of Cale Yarborough and Kyle Petty and the Chevrolet of Dale Earnhardt. In July 1996, the partnership between Elliott and Hardy was dissolved, the team being renamed Bill Elliott Racing. Still rattling off 205 mph laps, Elliott flew around the track and through the field again. Certainly it must have looked that way for many watching from the stands that day. At the same time, Ernie was under the hood of the Coors-Melling Ford, tightening the oil line. Questions, comments, suggestions? Two laps later, Elliott dropped the hammer. As he roared down pit road, one of the TV commentators said “It’s an almost lost cause now for Bill Elliott.”, The Elliott family team, headed up by Bill, George, Ernie and Dan, were tough to beat in 1985. Bobby Allison finished fourth in a Buick, one lap down. Race commentators immediately called it an engine problem as Elliott slowed and made his way around the track towards the pits. But on a 2.88 miles superspeedway such as Talladega, it’s almost impossible without a streak of good luck during these days prior to the current “Lucky Dog” rule. As Elliott swept under the checkered flag, the fans cheered wildly and waved for the Dawsonville winner. Coming into the May 5 event at Alabama International Motor Speedway, now known as Talladega Superspeedway, NASCAR thought they had the answer to slow down Elliott, under the guise of a rule change for all the Ford teams. Elliott had been on a tear since winning the season opening Daytona 500 in dominating fashion. That record would stand until the May 1997 event at Talladega, which was run caution free. Ford pilot Cale Yarborough said he wasn’t in favor of any rule changes. He passed Yarborough on the backstretch, and pulled away. It’s one thing to make up laps at a half-mile short track. “We’ve got a race now!” one commentator said excitedly. “The way it performed I just couldn’t believe it. All opinions are those of the individual authors. Bill Elliott sat on the pole and Cale Yarborough’s No. Between the two was second place Darrell Waltrip. “I thought the engine was blowing up,” Dan Elliott said recently.
It’s not the engine,’” Dan said. Meanwhile, Earnhardt, Richard Petty, Yarborough and Kyle Petty went four wide down the backstretch racing for lead. They were about to be witness to one of the most amazing runs in motor racing history. “They’ve got to keep the field as equal as possible. Brandon Reed is the editor and webmaster for Georgia Racing History.com. “Bill came on the radio and said ‘how long will this engine run at this pace’ and Ernie said ‘I don’t know.
As the two ran through the tri-oval, Elliott dropped low and made the pass to get back on the lead lap. The car just worked phenomenally”. But more than that, it was a once in a lifetime race. Despite rules changes to slow the Fords, Elliott set a new world's record for the pole at Talladega. On lap 145, Elliott dropped low on the backstretch and powered past Yarborough for the lead. Waltrip’s day came to an end suddenly as the engine in his Junior Johnnson owned Chevy gave out. Photo courtesy the Ray Lamm collection. “NASCAR has got a job to do,” engine builder Ernie Elliott said in a pre-race TV interview. Over the next few laps, Elliott closed on Yarborough, stalking the South Carolina veteran. But, just as before, there was no caution. Elliott was almost a full two laps down. According to Dan, even the team didn’t know how long they could keep up such speeds. As Richard Petty powered around Earnhardt, Elliott rolled into the pits. This website is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame or the Georgia Auto Racing Hall of Fame Association, Inc. All content is the intellectual property of the individual authors.
A caution would have given him a huge break. With 30 laps to, Elliott moved into third place with a straightaway’s distance between himself and Yarborough. But, on this day back in 1985, Bill Elliott earned his nickname. Over the radio, Elliott had already revealed that it wasn’t an engine issue that was causing the smoke. Cale said ‘I can’t latch on to the draft.
“So we knew coming down pit road that it had to be an oil leak, but where it was coming from was the 64 million dollar question.”, “I was the one that found the oil leak coming from a loose line off of the sump pump,” Dan continued. Email us! All of the following YouTube videos in this post combine race footage with radio broadcast by MRN Radio. Waltrip said he wanted to know how all the longtime teams could be so far behind while one team was so much better. We went over there to win.”. Elliott would again have to do things the hard way. All that the Dawsonville driver needed now was a caution, and he could rejoin the race on the end of the lead lap.
Elliott had just charged by Yarborough off of the fourth turn to take third as the cars approached the tri-oval. It was a one-two-three sweep for Ford. But the Georgia boys still had a surprise for everybody.
“I was listening to the scanner,” Dan Elliott told us. Anybody that can’t see that is blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other.”. 28 Hardee’s Ford was second.
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