Sweeping the Blender

H

HardScrabble

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Kurt Busch completed the season sweep of Bristol by winning Sunday's 500 lapper. It has been done before. Since the track began hosting races in 1961 there have two races held on the highbanks (not always concrete) each year.

Kurt's season sweep was the 13th time it has been done. Pretty fair country bunch of drivers are in the club with him.

Cale Yarborough has done it 3 times in 1974, 1976, and 1977.

DW did it twice, and did it in consecutive years joining Cale as the only drivers to do so, in 1982 and 1983.

Dale Earnhardt did it twice in 1985 and 1987.

Fred Lorenzen, better known for superspeedway prowess, was the first to accomplish the feat in 1964.

David Pearson did it in 1968

Bobby Allison did it in 1972

Richard Petty did it in 1975

Rusty Wallace was the last driver before Kurt to pull it off winning both races in 2000.

Realize that the track has changed over the years both in the banking and from asphalt to concrete. But the first pole at Bristol in 1961 was set at 79.225 mph by the 1964 season sweeper Fred Lorenzen. At the Spring race this year Ryan Newman set the track record at 128.709.
 
Oooops.........mistake here

Ol DW did it three times, and three times in a row. 1981, 1982 and 1983.

Puts him in a class by himself!
 
I guess I owe DW some more respect than I thought. Not only was he a great Bristol driver, but from what I heard he was pretty quick on road circuits as well.
 
Originally posted by BebiF1@Aug 26 2003, 12:24 PM
I guess I owe DW some more respect than I thought. Not only was he a great Bristol driver, but from what I heard he was pretty quick on road circuits as well.
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Ole "Jaws" , appropriately named by Cale Yarborough, always said just enough to piss everybody off, but not quite enough to engage in fisticuffs.

Waltrip's intent was to intimidate with his mouth while others might do it with thier bumper. Not that Waltrip was exempt from that tactic either. Waltrip got the competition so aggravated with his mouth, they made mistakes that eventually cost them any chance to finish in front of Waltrip.

Busch, like Waltrip, has, unwittingly, found an intimidation tactic that will be most effective. When you look past the exterior, Kurt "Hurricane" Busch is sincere in his personal deportment. In race trim, he can back up his brashness, loud mouth and taunts.

Just like ole (won't he ever go away?) "Jaws".
 
DW in his prime was about as good as they get. Those who only got to watch him in the twilight of his career have no idea just how good he was.

Okay on road courses, won 5 times at Riverside in 27 races. Never won at Watkins Glen or Sears Point, but timing has something to do with that.

DW was a short track ace from the top drawer.

Including the twilight years his stats are impressive.

Bristol: 52 starts, 12 wins, 32 top 10's
Martinsville: 52 starts, 11 wins, 31 top 10's
Nashville: 25 races, 8 wins, 19 top 10's
N. Wilkesboro: 45 races, 10 wins, 26 top 10's

While DW was sweeping the Bristol races '81, '82, and '83 he also managed to win the first race there in 1984. Seven wins in a row inside the blender.
 
Originally posted by HardScrabble@Aug 26 2003, 06:44 AM
DW in his prime was about as good as they get. Those who only got to watch him in the twilight of his career have no idea just how good he was.
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Never got to see him in his prime, but you don't win 3 championships without some talent.
 
DW is an icon he imbraced us with his driving now when nascar was on fox i learned something new every race. He is like a nascar einstein.

"boogity, boogity, boogity"
 
You forgot to mention that DW was one of the biggest 'cheaters' out there. Of course, it's not cheating if you don't get caught. Not sure DW would admit it, but I read an interview on Buddy Parrott a few years back and Buddy talked about a lot of their innovations...hehehe.

A lot of people say Smokey Yunick was a cheater too, but I tend to disagree. At the time there was no rules against all of Smokey's 'innovations'. NASCAR quickly made rules after they found them on his cars. Some of the things that Buddy talked about that DW and he did, they knew they were breaking the rules.
 
Buddy Parrott never cc'd for DW in any of his championship seasons. Matter of fact Buddy has never chiefed a championship winner.

Buddy was Darrell's crew chief between what, 1977 and 1980 I think. During that span they won 21 races total. And none of DW's streak at Bristol was during that time.

Biggest "cheater" is a relative term, you would have to know what every other team was doing at the time. Odds are that most of the "innovations" were things that other teams were either doing or about to do. That is almost a truism in this sport.
 
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