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I remember watching this race because of 2 factors...... 1. being that it was the 1st race to be substuted for the novemeber race for Riverside raceway<which closed for sub development> and 2. to see if this would be a proper replacement for above racing wise... I do also remember that the 1st 30 laps of the race was pre-emptyed by a golf tournerment that over ran its time slot.... Neverless what were about to see that fall afternoon was to be a burn burner of a finish....
The race started with a unpresented 43 car field which back in those days was unheard of.... since 1976 the starting fields were no more that 42, manly for the Daytona 500 but this race start 1 maybe 2 cars from the SW series, on the pole race Geoffery Bodine and outside pole was Rusty Wallace... With Bodine leading the 1st 2 laps then Rusty leading for the next 42 laps.... Ricky Rudd made his presents known on the 73rd lap and was to be a name that would come up later on in this race, The 1st 3 yellows of the race was for minor issues..... but the last caution on lap 157 was a thundering crash that cause the frontstrech to look like a junkyard.... track was blocked and 13 laps were run under yellow for extensive clean up, not these days you would have had a 25 min red flag,
The 2nd half of the race was uneventful in terms of yellow flags, but there was a dominance of Rudd, 145 of the last 160 laps were lead by Rudd then his motor blrew.... this was the 3rd time in the 2nd half of 1988 that he came so close of winning then experience problems, Alan Kulwicki took the lead on lap 297 and lead the 312th and the most important lap of his life as he won the race by 18.5 secs over terry labonte and davey allison....
At the end of the race i thought it was great to see a 1st time winner.... only to be left scratching my head thinking "what is this"? Alan took his winning car and pulled it around the other way and did a victory lap backwards "what is this" i asked myself again, Not rellizing back then it was to be a trademark for years to come, exspecally with the untimley death of Alan Kulwicki in 1993, As he climbed from the car, Dr Jerry Puinch goes to him and asked him about his reversed victory lap, Alan says to him that "that was my polish victory lap, Ive been planning that for a long time" After all, I did not think he thought he was going to win, because of Rudds impressive lead that he had on him, but comming from 21st place and was going to finish second was not all that bad, but who was to be a bridesmaid??? Not Alan that day
Next on Flashback, The "almost" slingshot move, The brawl, The 1st Cbs Flag to flag race ever on telivision, The 1979 Daytona 500...... Keep makinglaps and i will see you soon..... till then
