Still awesome after 30 years

[corner-ad id=1]Elliott returns to Talladega for quick trip in comeback car of 1985

By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today

TALLADEGA – After 30 years the feel in the seat was – surprisingly – a little looser than he remembered and the car went around considerably slower, but all the memories it evoked were as vivid as if it were yesterday.

Bill Elliott was back on track at Talladega Superspeedway in the No. 9 Coors Melling Ford he drove to the greatest comeback in NASCAR history 30 years ago.

As part of the promotion for the Geico 500 weekend here May 1-3, Elliott took the car he drove to Victory Lane in 1985 four laps around the track in street clothes. The car hadn’t been outside since, on display in the International Motorsports Hall of Fame since 1986, but was refitted by the Dale Jarrett Driving Experience in time for Wednesday’s show.

“It felt like a million bucks — at least a hundred thousand,” Elliott said after climbing out of the car, a reference to the Winston Million he ultimately won after taking the checkered flag that day. “It drove actually pretty good when you’re running 100 miles an hour.”

He could only estimate that’s how fast he was going Wednesday because of all the track dust that got in his eyes. He cracked that’s probably how he went around the track that fateful May day — with his eyes closed.

Actually he was going considerably faster when he put on what moderator Eli Gold called “one of the all-time power shows we’ve seen in NASCAR history.”

Given what he knows now about the way things were then, Elliott said before climbing in he doesn’t know if he’d get out of the electric chair to get in that car today, especially to go 200 mph. But what he did that afternoon 30 years ago was pure electric.

He came from nearly two laps down after an oil system problem on Lap 48 and raced all the way back without benefit of cautions to win the race. He was picking up track position going more than 205 mph while the rest of the field plodded along at 195-198.

It wasn’t the equipment malfunction that caused him to fall so far behind, but length of time it took his crew to diagnose the problem. Everyone at the track figured Awesome Bill from Dawsonville had blown his engine and was surely done for the day when they saw the white smoke chugging from beneath his Thunderbird. From the cockpit Elliott didn’t know what it was, but he knew it wasn’t that.

The crew finally got it figured out as something an inch and a quarter wrench could fix. When Elliott returned to track after a 69-second pit stop, he was about the distance from the Quintard Mall to 431 behind the leaders and simply put the pedal to the medal.

“The majority of the thing I was thinking all day long is it probably wouldn’t live,” Elliott said. “The biggest thing I can remember is coming down pit road and dealing with the issue we had when the oil line came loose and then just basically going out and running wide open the rest of the day. By that point in time that’s all we could do.

“I was totally shocked that thing lived all day long, just totally shocked.”

He eventually overtook Cale Yarborough on the backstretch of Lap 145 and led 35 of the last 44 laps, including the last 20. He won by nearly two seconds.

Climbing into that same car Wednesday brought all that back.

“It felt like old times, absolutely like old times,” he said.

While he doesn’t miss the pressure of having to perform week to week, the trip down memory lane Talladega provided him did get him excited for more.

“I want to come back next Sunday … but not in the grandstand,” he said.

TALLADEGA RACE WEEK SCHEDULE
May 1 — International Motorsports Hall of Fame 200, 5 p.m.
May 2 — XFINITY Series Qualifying, 10 a.m.
May 2 — Sprint Cup Series Qualifying, noon
May 2 — Winn-Dixie 300, 2 p.m.
May 3 — Geico 500, noon

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