We all know about the biggest events in the history of the Bristol Night Race—Dale Earnhardt wrecking Terry Labonte, Tony Stewart tossing his helmet, Dale Earnhardt wrecking Terry Labonte—but some events, nearly as big, have fallen through the cracks. Here’s some moments under the lights at The Last Great Coliseum that you may have missed.
1979: The second Bristol Night Race is held. Within five laps of the race starting, people are already complaining that the race “isn’t as good as it used to be”.
1983: Darrell Waltrip wins the race for a third straight time, his SEVENTH straight Cup win at Bristol. So yeah, without “gimmicks”, Nascar IS kind of dull and repetitive.
1990: Ernie Irvan wins his first-ever Cup race. And somewhere near New York a future limo driver is inspired.
1994: Rusty Wallace wins his first Bristol Night Race in the iconic Miller Genuine Draft car. For those of you who weren’t around at the time, yeah, none of us know what made MGD special, or what “cold filtered” actually meant.
2003: Kurt Busch helps Sharpie pull off a rare Race Entitlement/Race Winner double as the Sharpie car wins the Sharpie 500. Appropriate as Kurt’s brother would show what “entitled” REALLY meant in a few years.
2016: Kevin Harvick wins in the only edition of the Bristol Night Race (to date) to have been contested over two days. The official cause was rain, but I think the cause of the rain itself was because I was there.
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