Every professional sport has a set of guidelines, rules and regulations that the participants must adhere to.
Failure to do so can result in penalties, including disqualification in one form or another. Every sport has disqualified competitors, teams and organizations at some point, often for a wide range of offenses.
NASCAR racing is no different. The disqualification of Alex Bowman‘s car following the NASCAR Cup Series race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL may have felt seismic at the moment it was announced due to the playoff implications. But it pales in comparison to another that still looms large more than three decades later, primarily because it changed who won the race at a time when that just didn’t happen.
NASCAR founder Bill France was not keen on disqualifying winning cars. He believed that the people who paid to sit in the stands to watch the race deserved to leave the track comfortable that they had seen the actual winner awarded the trophy.
If winners were constantly being stripped of their victory hours or even days later, France felt like it opened up the possibilities for people to speculate that the winners were being determined behind the scenes, not on the track. He didn’t want to do anything that might erode the integrity and authenticity of the sport.
This led to fines, point deductions and crew suspensions becoming more prevalent. A winning car that failed post-race technical inspection or committed driving infractions during the event would be permitted to keep the victory.
Richard Petty‘s 198th career win at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1983 came with clamoring for the win to be taken away after his car was discovered to have an illegal oversized engine and improper tires. Points and money were taken, but the finishing order stood.
Then came the day when all of that changed.
On June 9, 1991, the Cup Series made its third visit to Sonoma Raceway. Tommy Kendall was filling in for the injured Kyle Petty and found himself out front late. Second-place Mark Martin was pressuring Kendall, and the two made contact while running side by side. Martin spun, and Kendall faded with a cut tire.
That handed the lead to Davey Allison with Ricky Rudd pursuing and just three laps to go. Coming to the white flag, Rudd dove into Allison in the final corner and sent the Texaco No. 28 spinning. Allison recovered to hold second while Rudd took the white flag and appeared to be cruising toward his second win of 1991. That is, until NASCAR officials stunned everyone.
When Rudd came to the line at the conclusion of the final lap, the flagman waved the black flag, sending Rudd’s Hendrick Motorsports crew into an agitated frenzy.
Meanwhile, when Allison crossed the line, the checkered flag was waved and the Robert Yates Racing team was declared the winner.
The most puzzling aspect through everything was the scoring of Rudd and his No. 5 team. Historically, any driver that does not heed a black flag at the end of a race is scored as the final car on the lead lap. That would have made Rudd the 18th-place finisher. But Rudd was awarded second place after being assessed a five-second penalty, further complicating the situation.
After the finish, Rudd firmly stated that the contact was unintentional.
“It was a racing accident, just hard racing,” Rudd said. “I was on the brakes, and my car was wheel-hopping. I got into him [Allison], no doubt. It was my fault. But it wasn’t intentional. I’m about fed up with this mess.”
NASCAR Vice President Les Richter later explained the situation from the perspective of the sanctioning body.
“Rudd’s actions were felt to be unnecessary and avoidable,” Richter said. “It would have been more difficult [to judge] if Ricky would have been on the quarter panel of his [Allison’s] car. It wasn’t.
“He hit Davey in the rear end and spun Davey out. He was running very hard into the corner, racing to win. But there comes a time when you have to call balls and strikes, to make a judgment call.”
The outcome seemed to change the immediate fortunes for both drivers involved. While Rudd would go on to finish a career-best second in the final points standings, he wouldn’t return to a Cup victory lane until September of 1992, more than a year later. Allison picked up another win two weeks later at Michigan International Speedway and added two additional victories in the final three races of the season for a total of five wins.
Allison would won five more races in 1992, four of them prior to Rudd’s return to the winner’s circle.
Hopefully for Bowman’s sake, he can bounce back at bit more quickly than that.
Frank Velat has been an avid follower of NASCAR and other motorsports for over 20 years. He brings a blend of passionate fan and objective author to his work. Frank offers unique perspectives that everyone can relate to, remembering the sport's past all the while embracing its future. Follow along with @FrankVelat on Twitter.
Reminds me of Mark Martins illegal carborator spacer issue in erly 90s. He lost 46 points for the infraction and lost the championship by 26 points.While it wasn’t a ‘judment call’ (spacer was supposed to be 2 inch and his were 2.5 inch) it was a judgement in that era to take the points…and the victory.
The problem with Mark Martin’s spacer was that it was welded to the manifold and had no effect on the HP. NA$CAR said it wasn’t illegal but they did not like it.