When I think of my favorite era of NASCAR, the one I wish I could have been around to see the most was the 1980s.
My bookshelf is littered with trading cards of the drivers purchased along with their matching diecasts. The old sheet metal, reminiscent of the same cars my grandfather and me used to scour junkyards for in hopes of spare parts, serves as a reminder of simpler times in the sport.
Pure, unadulterated speed met at its peak with the sheer will to be better than the driver in the car in front, behind or beside you. Boundaries were crossed that just 15 years before had been only dreams in the stock car racing world.
Those new speeds became the great equalizer, but they also came at a risk to the technology of the era, as several drivers found out on that February day in 1985. By the ’90s, the technology had well caught up with the speed of the car. When one think of the ’80s, one thinks of drivers living on the edge of speed and power. You had to be a wheel man, and a damn good one at that.
Bill Elliott was just that — a wheelman — but so was the late, wonderfully great and ever-tough Cale Yarborough, who had just come off of two straight Daytona 500 wins. Of course, you can’t mention greatness without mentioning Richard Petty, either. To that same end, you have to consider AJ Foyt, Darrell Waltrip, David Pearson, Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Terry Labonte, Neil Bonnett and Bobby Allison.
Why do I mention all these names together? They were all on the same track, in the same race, chasing the same goals, trying to climb to the same mountaintop. The ’80s might have been when the sport was at its greatest — packed to the brim with limitless talent.
All of that talent meant that fans were sure to be treated to a back-and-forth affair, right?
Wrong. This became a two-car race by the time the green flag dropped. Elliott and Yarborough were the men to beat that day, and nobody was going to come close over the course of a long run.
Elliott clocked a then-record 205.114 mph, and almost lapped the field in his qualifying race (yes, qualifying was much different back then). Yarborough was hot on his tail and clocked in at 203.814 mph himself. They started the race on the front row and duked it out at the top of the leaderboard all the way up until the first pit window.
That was when Petty took the lead by staying out to try to gain an edge as he knew it’d be tough to get to chase down the leaders. Instead, he opted to try and make his patented No. 43 STP Pontiac Grand Prix as wide as he could in hopes to slow them down.
However, the competition was simply too fast for Petty that day, and before long, Elliott and Yarborough were back at the top of the leaderboard. The two-car race was back on. Petty’s car later caught fire in the pits and had transmission issues, which knocked him out of the race.
On lap 62, the technology of the time began to lose pace with the speed and temperatures of that ’85 Daytona 500. Yarborough’s engine went out. As the legendary racer began to lose positions one after another, Elliott had to grin from ear to ear behind that wheel. All he had to do was keep everything together, and nobody was going to catch him. When does it ever work out like that, though?
Many, many more met their end with a similar fate as Yarborough that day, including both Parsons brothers, Allison, Foyt, Pearson and several others who posed real threats to Elliott.
Chief among these threats in this particular race was Bonnett, who, through pit strategy, was able to eventually wrestle the lead from Elliott in the race’s closing laps. His car was holding together, and he had the best shot of anybody at beating Elliott. However, when Bonnett did eventually have to stop, his team took too long.
The kicker, though? So did Elliott’s, but not of their own fault. NASCAR made the fastest man on the track that day tape over a headlight in the pits, which cost Elliott precious late race seconds.
With 55 laps to go, after a painstaking 41-second pit stop, Elliott was still only one lap down. Almost half the field had already been taken out of that year’s Great American Race, and Elliott still smelled blood in the water.
Elliot climbed his way back to the front of the field, but with 34 laps to go, Bonnett got a late push from Waltrip. It was the first time all day Elliott had been passed since he and Yarborough’s battles in the early laps.
Six laps later, Elliott got the last break he needed. Dick Brooks lost a wheel, and the caution was flown. Elliott knew everyone would pit. He knew he could win it — nobody was as good as his crew. He won the race off pit road and finally thought he had put Bonnett in the rear view. If it weren’t for Lennie Pond, that is.
Pond spun out, and instead of pitting for fresh rubber to kick it in the driveway, Bonnett stayed out to leapfrog Elliott and take the lead. It was for naught, though, as nobody on the track that day could keep Elliott at bay when he had fresh rubber underneath his No. 9 Ford Thunderbird.
It was of no fault of Bonnett’s. Electing to stay out was a calculated risk, and this was the Great American Race. Forget pitting and taking second. Stay out and try to win the thing, right?
Right. Just keep your motor together, first. That was the part Bonnett failed to do, unfortunately. With less than four laps to go, Bonnett’s engine went up in smoke, and so did anyone but Elliott’s chances at a trip to victory lane that day. The race restarted on the last lap, and Elliott cruised to victory after the final restart.
This race, against some of the best to ever sit behind a steering wheel not just in NASCAR, but in history, served as one of the first jewels in the crown that would become the legacy of Awesome Bill from Dawsonville. God knows it wouldn’t be the last speed record Elliott would set at Daytona International Speedway, that’s for sure. He’d go on to clock 210.364 mph later on in his career in 1987.
Elliott went on to win 11 races in 1985 and sweep four tracks — Pocono Raceway, Michigan International Speedway, Darlington Raceway and Atlanta Motor Speedway — a record that still stands to this day. The two closest? Earnhardt in 1987 (Bristol Motor Speedway, Richmond Raceway and Darlington) and Jimmie Johnson in 2007 (Atlanta, Martinsville Speedway and Richmond).
1985 serves as a benchmark year in other ways, too. It was the first year that each race had been televised in some way, which in turn lead to the legend of Elliott growing even larger. In arguably his most dominant year, even though he didn’t win the championship, his skills were put on a platform for the entire country to see.
1985 was the year Elliott’s legend grew to epic proportions. He won Most Popular Driver from 1984-1988. He stamped his legacy on the pages of NASCAR history. He blazed a trail for others to follow. He began to weave his legend into the very fabric of motorsport history, and looking back, the 1985 Daytona 500 was an integral part of that.
Tanner Marlar is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated’s OnSI Network, a contributor for TopSpeed.com, an AP Wire reporter, an award-winning sports columnist and talk show host and master's student at Mississippi State University. Soon, Tanner will be pursuing a PhD. in Mass Media Studies. Tanner began working with Frontstretch as an Xfinity Series columnist in 2022.
Enjoyed this article very much, Tanner. Awesome Bill from Dawsonville, along with many of the other greats you mentioned certainly made the 80’s a decade to remember and enjoy as a race fan. Most of those races I’ve watched when Speed channel or FS1 whatever it is these days shows them again. I wish they would broadcast more of the old races. IMO they are much more entertaining than the more recent races.