1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Series V3

I've already run the first three races of the season. Here's a recap:

At the Daytona 500, the lead changed hands more times than I can count. In the end, though, 19-year old Andy Sammonds, the defending Winston Cup Series champion (who you may remember was the first rookie to win a championship in a national NASCAR series), took the checkers in the #13 Mountain Dew Chevrolet for Pacific Coast Racing. His teammate and twin sister, Katie Sammonds, driving the #72 Mountain Dew Chevrolet, finished 17th, the best finish by a woman at Daytona.

The next week at the Goodwrench 500, Pacific Coast Racing made it two-for-two, as Katie Sammonds smashed the gender barrier and became the first woman ever to win in NASCAR. And lo, there was much celebrating not only in victory lane, but nationwide. The first person to greet Katie was, of course, Andy, who scooped her into a tight hug on the front straightaway.

The third race, the Motorcraft Quality Parts 500, ended what could have been an impressive streak for PCR, as Andy Sammonds wrecked early when he spun off the front of Darrell Waltrip in a wreck that also collected Ben Hess, Greg Sacks, Jay Sauter, Jimmy Spencer, and Dale Jarrett. Another big wreck broke out when Hut Stricklin's steering failed in a bizarre fashion and he turned into the outside wall, ending up on his lid and collecting several other cars (really, it was me taking control of the "ghost car", an unpainted car that I use to be able to watch the race and, if necessary, manipulate the outcome of the race in my fictional teams' favor by using it as a roadblock against other cars). In the end, Katie Sammonds finished fifth, while Mark Martin took the checkers for the first time in his career, in a race that shook up the points standings: going into the race, Andy was the points leader, and Katie was fourth; following the race, Andy fell to tenth, Katie moved up to third, and Mark Martin moved to the lead, while Rusty Wallace sat pretty in second.

The next race is the Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond. We hope to see you there, and if you can't make it, that's okay! The action will all be on the TBS Superstation!

On a nice, sunny 80 degree day, the stars of the Winston Cup Series came to Richmond International Raceway.

The race was originally scheduled to be held on February 26, a week after the Daytona 500. However, snow fell and blanketed the speedway. As a result, it was instead held on Easter Sunday, the first time a race has been held on that day.

I can only describe this race as bizarre. For one thing, a jumpy rookie official threw the caution for minor contact on pit road, pissing off many drivers. Then, Dennis Malone (driver of the #2 car after Ernie Irvan's death at Atlanta last season) grossly missed the entrance to pit road and plowed right into tip of the wall. He was unharmed thanks to the safety improvements made this season (if you remember, three or four drivers, I don't remember which, were killed last season alone).

For almost half the race, the PCR cars stood on an island of their own, with Katie Sammonds leading, and Andy Sammonds trailing. Katie would have won the race, but for whatever reason (I was accelerating time), Dick Trickle ended up winning somehow, also claiming the Unocal 76 Challenge for winning from the pole.

Other drivers had issues, as well. Richard Petty and Dale Jarrett were among the drivers who wrecked, Rusty Wallace was parked by NASCAR and disqualified when he was found to have an illegal modification to his car's chassis, and others wrecked in a race of attrition.

Regardless, the mark had been made. The PCR drivers came in as Andy and Katie Sammonds. They came out with a new nickname.

The Wonder Twins.

For the record, this is what the PCR cars look like:


Here's Andy Sammonds' car.


And here's Katie's car.

PCR seeks to field another car by 1991. It's too early to tell who would drove it.

Perhaps the most controversial NASCAR race at the time, the 1989 TranSouth 500 was overseen by replacement officials after the regular officials went on strike. The race started off innocently enough, with single-file racing as drivers bided their time, waiting to strike at the right moment. The chaos began before the first caution, when Darrell Waltrip began fighting a bad-handling car that would slide coming out of turn four. One of the replacement officials, who had never seen a NASCAR race in his life, nor had read the NASCAR rulebook, disqualified him, but Waltrip defied him and stayed on the track. The second caution of the day was when the chaos really began to pick up. What started as a minor enough crash in which Kyle Petty's steering locked and he got into Jay Sauter entering turn one after the first restart became a multi-car pileup, as several cars, including Ken Schrader and Terry Labonte, smashed hard into the crash. Schrader was injured and will be out for at least four races. During the caution period, Kyle Petty ran too slow, as the replacement officials did not send for any tow trucks, and Petty was rear-ended by Neil Bonnett, who in turn was rear-ended by Sterling Marlin, ending all of their days.

The replacement officials, as it turned out, were all hastily drafted off the streets by Darlington Raceway with practically no training, and thus, disqualified whichever cars they didn't like the colors of. At several points, the rain fell, but the officials did nothing, causing a rash of cautions that continued until only ten cars were left in the race. By race's end, all cars who continued running were declared disqualified by the officials, but after a spat between NASCAR, the officials, and the track, the standings were revised, all cars who were disqualified were either listed as running or with a myriad of issues, and Jimmy Means, who was scored in first at the time the checkered flag waved, gained his first career victory.

The drivers were LIVID with Darlington Raceway for hiring such horrible race officials, and NASCAR considered dropping the track from the 1990 schedule and replacing it with the new superspeedway that had just opened outside Gilroy, CA near San Jose, known as San Jose Superspeedway. Darlington, though, fired all of the replacement officials and turned them over to the police when it was found out the officials were actually staff from a nearby dirt track who were suffering from Darlington's popularity, so they sent the officials as plants to sabotage the race proceedings and force NASCAR to leave town. As it happened, THE TRACK ITSELF was seized by federal officials pending a malicious slander lawsuit.

Regardless, Jimmy Means finally had a win in NASCAR, and would be running in The Winston, Andy Sammonds shot up to fifth in standings, and NASCAR gained a new chapter in its long and storied history. The event would come to be known in NASCAR and ESPN lore as the "Sabotaged Race".

Yeah, I don't know what happened with this race. I really don't.

After a terrible hit during the second caution of Sunday's TranSouth 500 at Darlington Raceway (the "Sabotaged Race", as it has come to be known as), Ken Schrader has been hospitalized with back and leg injuries. He will be replaced by two-time Busch Grand National Series champion, Jack Ingram, who has not run a Winston Cup Series race since the National 500 at Charlotte in 1981. Schrader will be out for at least five races while he recovers.



Pacific Coast Racing, a team that has seen a resurgance as of late, winning five races in 1988 and two in 1989, as well as a driver's championship with rookie Andy Sammonds and the Daytona 500 with the same driver, will expand to a three-car operation in 1991. The car will be numbered 78, with sponsorship from Carquest Auto Parts. The driver has been announced as Belle Johnson, the girlfriend of PCR driver Andy Sammonds. Johnson is expected to run a full-time schedule and run for Rookie of the Year.