|| *Comments on the 1989 First Union 400:* View the most recent comment <#24> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. Matt posted: 01.01.2006 - 11:25 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Richard Petty failed to qualify for this race, his third DNQ in four races. Phil Parsons also DNQed and bought a ride for the race from Bob Bilby This was also the first race for Goodyear's radial tires, Earnhardt won on the Goodyear tires after Rusty Wallace grabbed the pole on Hoosier bias ply tires. 2. Matt posted: 01.02.2006 - 12:50 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) DNQ: Bobby Hillin Jr., Phil Parsons, Jerry O'Neil, J.D. McDuffie, Bill Meacham , Kevin Evans, and Mark Walbridge. 3. Bill posted: 04.20.2006 - 6:05 am Rate this comment: (2) (0) Darrell Waltrip took the lead at one point in this race while only running with 7 cylinders. If he had full power, Earnhardt wouldn't have gotten the victory that day. 4. NJStewart fan posted: 06.01.2006 - 10:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Earnhardt & Kulwicki battled it out hard the last couple of laps until Kulwicki ran up the track trying to pass Earnhardt with about 4 laps left. Great racing! 5. Darrell posted: 06.04.2006 - 9:41 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Yes it was some great racing! 6. Steve posted: 07.18.2006 - 10:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This was also the first Winston Cup race with radial tires. 7. Sébastien posted: 04.17.2009 - 6:09 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) the #29 Jarrett & #31 Sauter cars were both Pontiac in this race. 8. Matthew Lewis posted: 02.10.2013 - 10:21 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Dean Combs qualified the #60 that Phil Parsons would race after buying the ride. Bill Meacham was in the #04 Charles Meacham & Associates Chevrolet 9. Ryan J posted: 02.23.2017 - 9:14 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Cautions Caution 1: #83 accident, turn 2 Caution 2: #94 spin, turn 2 Caution 3: #31 spin, turn 4 Caution 4: #5 spin, turn 2 Caution 5: #4, #15, #30, #83, #88 accident, turn 4 Caution 6: debris frontstretch Caution 7: #16 spin, turn 2 Caution 8: #9, #84 accident turn 2 Caution 9: #16 engine, turn 4 Caution 10: #40 accident frontstretch 10. Jimnsimforever posted: 12.18.2018 - 12:20 am Rate this comment: (0) (1) @ 3 A response to your post about DW running on 7 cylinders and how if that hadn't happened Earnhardt wouldn't have won this race that day. That's racing. You have good luck and bad luck. Earnhardt had a big lead 2 weeks before this nearly 200 laps into the race in Darlington and cut a right rear tire, went into the wall and finished 33rd instead of 1st. The week before this race in Bristol Earnhardt was leading over halfway through the race when a piece off a lap car in front of him flew off and broke something under Dale's front end. He went 14 laps down before they fixed it, had such a good car he finished only 8 laps down, making up 6 laps in less than half a race before finishing 16th instead of 1st. Had those things not happened Earnhardt would've won the championship and Rusty would've never won one in his career. Earnhardt would've passed Petty, had 8 championships and Jimmie Johnson would still need 1 more to tie. All those things did happen though because that's racing. 11. Jimnsimforever posted: 12.18.2018 - 7:30 am Rate this comment: (0) (3) From 1979 through 2000, Dale would've won every race he didn't have bad luck in now that I look back on it. When Winston wasn't the sponsor anymore, they wouldn't have gone through 3 different sponsors for Cup racing. They would've voluntarily given up the sponsorships because he would be the greatest sports figure ever and his brand would be so big the 3 series would look something like this. The Earnhardt Cup The Dale Series The Intimidater Truck Series The Earnhardt All-Star Challenge (Earnhardt Open for guys trying to get in the all star race). To start up the season we'd have The Man In Black Shootout. The Twin Ironhead's would be the Daytona Qualifying races. The Earnhardt Cup champion would get the Ralph Dale Earnhardt Memorial Trophy. But bad luck happened, that's racing. 12. gary24fan posted: 12.18.2018 - 7:30 am Rate this comment: (1) (1) Kids comment #11 is an example of why you should stay in school. That has to be the most delusional thing I've read or heard since Jerry Punch started that "he can see the air" bullshit. They still would have needed sponsors to put these events on, but your boy would be alive today if he'd mounted his f**king seat belts properly. 13. Jimnsimforever posted: 12.18.2018 - 5:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) On a serious note. I watched the race you were talking about, it was 87 or 88. Jerry Punch was doing a piece on drivers dealing with their blind spots and how they could tell if a car was there. He said several drivers said this and that, then he mentioned Earnhardt told him after you've been racing for so long, you can feel the air change in the car. They even showed a clip I believe it was Darrell Waltrip saying you can sense if a car is there or not. They were implying all the drivers at that level could do it. Not just Dale. 14. Jimnsimforever posted: 12.18.2018 - 5:33 pm Rate this comment: (1) (2) Ok, I'm done posting comedic posts as if I were the most hardcore Earnhardt fan ever. It seems parody is taken seriously here. I'll just stick with serious posts. To believe the handful of funny posts i've made here or there as if someone (even the most hardcore Earnhardt fan) would actually believe that is stunning. I made a post on another thread about "Earnhardt awesomeness" held by all the Earnhardt drivers and even went as far as saying Kerry was even able to win 4 ARCA races by just letting his Earnhardt aura carry him around to the checked flag. The post was taken as if I were serious as a heart attack. To the one guy that got it. I got a big kick out of the story of Dale Sr used to take long satisfying naps during green flag runs and let his mustache drive for him, lol. 15. Tarheel posted: 12.18.2018 - 8:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) 14, that was me. I could hardly believe people were getting bent out of shape over what was obvious satire. As for your post #11, I was going to mention that all drivers wishing to drive in Nascar would also be required to change their last names to Earnhardt and they'd only be differentiated by their car numbers: 3-1, 3-2, 3-3, etc. But I guess the fun is over now, so I won't mention it. 16. RaceFanX posted: 12.27.2019 - 1:39 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Eddie Bierschwale's 18th place run was his best finish of 1989 when he was actually at the wheel of his usual #23 Oldsmobile. He technically had a top-10 earlier in the season at the Daytona 500 but that was with Kyle Petty driving almost the entire race in relief as part of a sponsorship deal. This was Bierschwale's second-straight top-20 finish but he wouldn't have any more through the rest of the season. 17. BOBO83329521 posted: 04.26.2020 - 5:32 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The Hoosier tires were absolutely to be avoided at all costs in this one. Leader Darrell Waltrip took out polesitter Rusty Wallace at around quarter distance, no caution came out because of a new NASCAR rule after the Bristol race saw 20 cautions. This was the beginning of the downfall of the #17 in this race as he would go down a cylinder. Impressive run by DW in this one running on 7 cylinders to go and take the lead away from Senior. Trickle was up in second place up until Bill Elliott turned him around on a restart right after the Mikey crash. Caution came out then not for Trickle's spin but rather for metal debris on the front straight. He would come back and lead under caution later. Ben Hess was having a great race up in the top 10 up until he had a crash with 50 to go. Comebacks were completed for Geoff Bodine and Terry Labonte to get back on the lead lap after their various issues. Rough and rowdy there at the end between Senior and Kulwicki. Nice save by Kulwicki there with 3 to go but that cost him 18. Mile501 posted: 04.27.2020 - 6:20 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) @17 "...no caution came out because of a new NASCAR rule after the Bristol race saw 20 cautions." I am curious, what was the new rule that came out? 19. BOBO83329521 posted: 04.27.2020 - 8:38 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) @18 It was when NASCAR said that they would not throw cautions for spins or minor incidents unless there was a true reason to, like a car parked or incapable of making it to the pits or back on track safely. Definitely this rule backfired during the Martinsville race in '89 when Bill Elliott busted something in his front end and started leaking fluid but there was no caution??? This rule of thumb was reversed in the early 2000s 20. Jimmie4life posted: 04.27.2020 - 9:09 am Rate this comment: (0) (1) @19 In 2018, NASCAR used that rule at Bristol when someone spun into turn 3 down to the inside wall, but no yellow flag. The idea of not throwing flags for wrecks has been more lenient over the past few years. 21. BOBO83329521 posted: 04.27.2020 - 9:14 am Rate this comment: (0) (1) Not saying there are exceptions, but around 2/3 of the cautions we see in today's NASCAR (not including stages) wouldn't have been cautions in the weeks and even years following that Bristol '89 22. Rich posted: 12.27.2020 - 7:32 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Bob Jenkins, Ned Jarrett and Gary Nelson were the commentators. Dr. Jerry Punch and Benny Parsons were the pit road reporters. 23. RaceFanX posted: 02.03.2021 - 11:23 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Dale Earnhardt's winning #3 GM Goodwrench Chevrolet Monte Carlo from this race is preserved in the RCR Museum in the exact condition it came off the track from this one, right down to retaining the tire marks on the doors he picked up on the way to victory. In 2021 Childress said he took the historic first win on the Goodyear radial tires as a mark of pride since many people said Earnhardt's driving style fit better with the bias ply tires and thought he would never win right out of the gate on the new rubber before the Intimidator immediately proved that hypothesis to be significantly incorrect. Childress had the car preserved right away, with the Monte Carlo due to replacement with the new Lumina in two races anyway the team wasn't going to be running that car again anyway. 24. rateus posted: 02.06.2021 - 1:49 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Driver Change - Starting line-up shows the Bob Bilby ride that Phil Parsons bought was qualified by Rodney Combs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: