The Winston Tag

By David Morgan, Associate Editor The Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race has seen its fair share of fireworks over the years, but in the fifth edition of the annual exhibition race in 1989, those fireworks spilled off the track to create one of the more memorable moments in the event’s history. Heading into “The Winston,” as the race was known in those days, both Rusty Wallace and Darrell Waltrip had won three races each and it appeared that the two would be fighting it out over the course of theRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor When the Cup Series made it to Charlotte for the 1987 all-star race, Dale Earnhardt had absolutely dominated the season up to that point, winning six of the nine races that had taken place thus far in the season. His rival, Bill Elliott, had won the season opening Daytona 500. With the two going at it week in and week out, it would all come to a head in The Winston. Earnhardt, the hard-charging North Carolina native versus Elliott, the mild-mannered Georgia boy. Elliott hadRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Editor The All-Star Race, originally called “The Winston” when it began in 1985, was ran on Saturday afternoon in its inception, but when Charlotte Motor Speedway president Humpy Wheeler decided to put lights up at the track in 1992 and move the race to the nighttime, business really picked up from there. With the installation of the $1.7 million, 1.2 billion candlepower lighting system, ingeniously devised by Iowa lighting company Musco Lighting, Charlotte became the largest track to have lights installed, behind the short tracks ofRead More

By David Morgan, NASCAR Writer As the NASCAR community descends upon Charlotte for the traditional Charlotte race weeks, which include the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600 that take place over the next two weekends at Charlotte Motor Speedway, all of the focus turns to the rough and tumble non-points event set for this Saturday night. With that in mind, this week’s edition of “Throwback Thursday Theater” takes a look back at one of the more memorable All-Star races in history, the 2000 running of “The Winston.” PriorRead More