My favorite thing to do in parallel with the current NASCAR season, is watch a season from the past that I’ve never seen. It is a great way to learn about the evolution of our sport, how the world has changed through the lens of fast race cars.
This year we travel back to 1994. Dale Sr is coming off his 6th NASCAR championship, the sport mourns the deaths of Alan Kulwicki, Davey Allison, and most recently Neil Bonnett and Rodney Orr.
The first thing to note is that 69 cars (nice) attempted to make the 500. The broadcast was solid as a young Mike Joy brought the pit road updates throughout the race. They even made some mentions to how the cars were built. The 3 suffered a broken windshield so they brought out some replacements and talked about the process there as well as mentioning wheels with grooves in them for the fingers to help drivers control their wheel without having to death grip and risk circulation issues.
The Differences to Today
This is the restrictor plate era of NASCAR but i noticed two key differences in the race compared to the 2026 product. The first being, tire wear. Almost every pit stop in this race involved the cars getting 4 fresh Hoosier (yes i said Hoosier) tires. It seems the cars really wore down and handling was way harder in the 90s.
A second distinct difference was the racing itself. Virtually no bump drafting all race long. There was a draft that many could use to catch and then pass, but passes were done via handling instead of having a drafting partner to follow you.
Race Highlights
First caution comes out and takes out Rusty Wallace, while cars were checking up a car came barreling in and lost control, wrecking others. Kyle Petty referred to this driver as “That Blind Boy”.
Lap 83, Bodine and Gordon get into each other and Bodine is turned.
First round of Green Flag stops came with about 70 to go, again… Tires were mandatory it seems.
With 15 to go Sterling Marlin leads Labonte, Gordon, Mark Martin, Ernie Irvan, and Dale.
The first move comes with 10 to go as the 6 and 28 of Martin and Irvan move past the 24 and 5.
Mark Martin would run out of fuel in the last lap, and the 28 doesn’t have enough to catch and pass Marlin who at 37 years old and over 200+ cup starts would win his first race.
Next week we head to NC for a thriller at the Rock!
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