Only Yesterday: When NASCAR in Nashville Made for an Epic Finish

On April 10, 2004, the NASCAR Xfinity Series (then the Busch Series) was racing at Nashville Superspeedway.

With it being Easter Weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series was off, and that meant the spotlight would shine directly on the drivers and teams of the second highest level of stock car racing.

After the first six Xfinity races of that year, 1994 champion David Green was atop the standings amidst a career resurrection of sorts. After several successful Xfinity seasons, Green made a run for Cup Rookie of the Year in 1997.

Needless to say, it didn’t go well. In 78 starts, he never finished better than 12th. But Green returned to the lower level with a vengeance, winning three times in 2003 and finishing second in points to Brian Vickers. Green hadn’t won yet in 2004, but he still seemed to be a title contender.

Of the six drivers who had won, five (Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jamie McMurray, Kevin Harvick, Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth) were full-time Cup regulars. The only full-time Xfinity driver with a win was Martin Truex Jr., who had just picked up his first career triumph at Bristol Motor Speedway two weeks prior.

There were no limits on Cup driver participation in 2004, so that wasn’t all that unusual. Standalone events were usually a good opportunity to break away from the dominance of the Cup Series stars. However, with the top teams home for the holiday, it meant that their drivers were free. Couple that with the fact that the race was only a few hours from Charlotte, N.C., at Nashville, and it’s not surprising that a few Cup guys showed up.

In total, 54 cars attempted to qualify for the 43 starting spots, which was a bit high but also not all that unusual in that era. Names like Morgan Shepherd, Mike Harmon and Norm Benning failed to qualify, which highlights the level of competition there was back then simply to get in the show.

Truex won the pole, but it was third-place starter Bobby Hamilton Jr. who surged to the early lead of the 225-lap race. Hamilton paced the field for the first 55 circuits until Kasey Kahne overtook him for the top spot. They swapped the lead six times between themselves over a span of 32 laps.

From there, the lead featured a veritable who’s who of current and future Cup Series stars. Kahne, Kyle Busch, Robby Gordon and Johnny Benson all took turns at the top of the leaderboard. But it was Clint Bowyer who led the lion’s share of the laps, holding the top spot for a total of 104 circuits.

At the time, Bowyer, Gordon and Busch were each searching for their first Xfinity Series win, which seems to highlight their motives amidst the chaotic finish to come.

Bowyer who took command from Kahne with just five laps to go on the final restart, but a monumental fight shaped up as Bowyer tried to pull away. Busch chased him down and briefly took over, but Bowyer immediately pulled a crossover move, bumped Busch and went right back around him.

This allowed Benson and Gordon to close in on the two leaders, and the four cars went into the first turn two-by-two with just two laps to go. Busch once again cleared Bowyer as they came off turn 2, where the pair made contact for the second time.

The second tangle was much more costly for everyone involved.

Busch lost control and spun. Bowyer, with Benson directly on his bumper, was unable to avoid him and spun as well. When Benson tried to move up to go around Bowyer’s sideways car, he went right into the side of Gordon. The spinning cars all slid down into the infield grass but recovered to rejoin the field at various points.

Michael Waltrip, who was fifth when the field crossed the line with two laps to go, inherited the lead and cruised to his 11th, and final, career Xfinity Series win under caution. Overtime was not yet a thing, but despite the less-than-dramatic final lap, the outcome was already being hailed as one of the most surprising finishes in history.

“I’ve lost a lot of races that I thought I should’ve won or could’ve won, but today we were lucky for sure,” Waltrip said in victory lane. “I knew the only chance I had was to try and go down the wall and hope they all got in the wreck. When I came out the other end and didn’t see anyone in front of me, I thought, ‘Well, that worked out like it was supposed to.'”

The four drivers involved occupied positions four through seven in the final rundown and had varying opinions on what took place.

Bowyer said, “He [Busch] got into me when he got around me. It’s just hard racing. I wouldn’t expect anything different from anybody.”

Gordon wasn’t quite sure what happened, saying, “I don’t know if the 21 [Bowyer] got into the 5 [Busch] or if the 5 just got loose. A synchronized spin, four cars.”

Busch was more direct, saying “He [Bowyer] turned underneath me, and I don’t know if he slipped or what, but he hit me in the door and spun us out. He hit us twice, and I never touched him once. I tried to be clean, but I guess he couldn’t try to be clean.”

Busch ended up winning his first five Xfinity Series races in 2004, finishing the year second to Truex in the championship. Gordon got his first at Richmond Raceway later that fall, while Bowyer finally made it to victory lane the next season at Kentucky Speedway.

For Waltrip, the race came not at the beginning but in the twilight of his competitive career. He left the track as the points leader, but three DNFs in a seven-race span buried him in the standings. With the championship out of reach, he abandoned any attempt to run the entire season, missing three races to focus on his Cup effort. Waltrip would never again grace an Xfinity victory lane as a driver.

This race has since been surpassed by other instances of leaders crashing each other out of contention that seem to be more prominent in our memories. But this finish was crazy before crazy became commonplace, and it’s a memory worth recalling every now and then.