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bigEfan · #1 (**permalink**) 08-30-2008, 02:58 PM

Great rivalries have roots deep within sport's core
Busch-Edwards latest in a long line of ruffled feathers
By Joe Menzer, NASCAR.COM
August 29, 2008
01:14 PM EDT

It's pretty simple, really. Take two drivers who are at or near the top of their profession, have one dump the other once or twice on the way to a high-speed race victory, throw in a few post-race verbal jabs or crude physical gestures, and there it is.

That's what has everyone talking in the aftermath of last Saturday's duel between Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch in the Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. It was the perfect storm as far as working up a great NASCAR rivalry.

With 31 laps to go, Edwards executed a bump-and-run pass on Busch, who had dominated the race to that point. Busch took exception to the bump -- well, and the pass, too -- attempted to retaliate almost immediately and failed, but then broad-sided Edwards twice on the cool-down lap after the event was over and Edwards had earned the victory. Edwards retaliated, joking that "the wheel must have slipped out of my hand," by turning hard left into Busch's car and sending it spinning.

The gloves are off

The Busch-Edwards fracas is exactly what NASCAR needs to pump up the volume before the Chase, says Joe Menzer.

Then they promptly engaged in a war of words afterward, with J.D. Gibbs, team president of Joe Gibbs Racing, warning Edwards, whom he said he greatly respects and admires, to watch it because "you reap what you sow."

Busch added: "We were as clean as could be, of course; but there was just one other dude we had a problem with."

Yet Edwards remained steadfastly unapologetic and said he would do it again under the same circumstances.

"I kind of just ran into him. That's what happened," Edwards said. "It's too bad we tore up the car a little bit after the race; I guess he wasn't happy about it and I can understand. But in the back of my mind all I could think about was Richmond in a Nationwide race when he was trying to get through the field and he pile-drove me. That's just the way it is. It's just racing. I have a lot of respect for the guy and he was real fast, but we can't give up points when they're right there for us to take.

"Man, that was exciting. They keep talking about rivalries; we might have one now."

Indeed, they might. With Busch first in points and Edwards second heading into this Sunday's race at Auto Club Speedway in California, with the two of them clearly at the top of their sport right now (Busch has a series-high eight Sprint Cup wins this season, Edwards six, and no one else more than one), coming off the fireworks that was last Saturday night at Bristol, this is good stuff.

But they will have to sustain it to match up with the greatest NASCAR rivalries of all time, the top 10 of which arguably are the following (please note that all involved hard racing that included the banging of fenders which sometimes were followed by the pounding of fists into faces, a reminder that this sport never really has been nor ever should be for the meek or weak-hearted who flinch at the possibility of a little contact):
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1. Richard Petty vs. David Pearson
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David Pearson had the last laugh, in Victory Lane after the 1976 Daytona 500.
Getty Images
David Pearson had the last laugh, in Victory Lane after the 1976 Daytona 500.

This one manifested itself in the 1976 Daytona 500, but had been going on for many years prior to that epic event. In the 13 seasons prior to the running of the race that neither of them would ever forget, they had finished one-two in a remarkable 57 races -- with David Pearson winning 29 times and Richard Petty 28.

Long-time NASCAR journalist Bill Robinson once wrote, "What could be more beautiful than Petty and Pearson, side by side, flat out and belly to the ground, racing toward a hurrying sundown?"

While the two drivers respected each other, there was no love lost between them. In the 1975 Daytona 500, won by Benny Parsons, Petty had infuriated Pearson by towing Parsons in his draft until Parsons could get within striking distance of Pearson, who was leading the race at the time. Petty was eight laps down and could have simply gotten out of Parsons' way, leaving him to attempt catching Pearson unassisted by aerodynamics. When Cale Yarborough and Richie Panch forced Pearson into an unfortunate spin on the backstretch late in the race, Parsons -- courtesy of Petty -- was in position to take advantage. He passed Pearson, who eventually had to settle for fourth, and went on to the victory.

Petty considered it payback for one time in 1974 when Pearson had duped him in the Firecracker 400, the July race at Daytona. Knowing that it was best to be in second coming down the stretch at the superspeedways, where the driver directly behind the leader could use he draft to execute the slingshot pass, Pearson didn't like the fact that he was the leader as they came around to take the white flag, signifying just one lap to go.

So as they approached the start-finish line, Pearson slowed and held up his arm out of his driver's side window as though he had car trouble. Petty drove by, and Pearson grinned to himself. Then he gunned his engine, quickly snuggled his No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing machine behind the No. 43 Petty Enterprises car, and moved into position for the slingshot pass. He executed it to perfection going down the homestretch and won the race.

But it was in the '76 Daytona 500 where the rivalry peaked. The two drivers were running one-two once again as they headed into Turn 3 toward a quickly setting sun on the final lap that afternoon, when Pearson executed a slingshot pass and vaulted into the lead. But when he drifted just a little too high up the track, Petty dove under him to retake the lead.

Through Turn 4, Petty actually surged ahead by half a car length. But as they exited the turn, this time it was Petty who drifted high. The right rear of his No. 43 Dodge caught the left front of Pearson's No. 21 Mercury -- turning it nose-first into the wall before Pearson spun into the infield and on toward pit road, where he came to rest facing the wrong way at the entrance to the pit areas. Petty's car fishtailed for 200 yards or more down the frontstretch and then turned head-on into the wall as well.

Even as he was spinning out of control, Pearson remained calm behind the wheel. He rammed in the clutch as he hit the wall, revving his engine in a last-ditch effort to keep it running no matter what was going to happen next. Petty's car, meanwhile, bounced off the wall and slid to a stop in the grassy infield less than a football field short of the finish line and what would have been his sixth Daytona 500 victory. But his engine died, and he could not restart it.

Pearson was able to keep his wounded engine running, and soon crawled past the dead Petty machine a few feet at a time -- whereas both men had been dueling at nearly 200 miles an hour only seconds earlier. Pearson crossed the finish line and claimed his first and what would be his only Daytona 500 victory.

Petty, of course, went on to win a record 200 races and seven points championships. Pearson remains second on the all-time list in victories with 105, and won three championships. They also rank one-two in career poles, with Petty claiming 126 to Pearson's 113.

To this day, Petty still laments the outcome in the '76 Daytona 500, saying, "The race I'll be remembered most for, and the one I'll remember most, is the one I lost."
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2. Richard Petty vs. Bobby Allison
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This one had blurred beginnings, but at times burned with more intensity than Petty-Pearson. It seems to have flared up around 1967, and for extended periods during the next four or five years, it seemed every time NASCAR visited a track, everyone wanted to know what Bobby Allison was going to do to Richard Petty that week, or vice versa.

The feud reached its crescendo on an October 1972 afternoon at North Wilkesboro Speedway in North Carolina. For much of the day, the two drivers traded paint and insults, setting up a frenzied final three laps that left them both and all in attendance gasping for air.

Petty was leading on Lap 397 of the 400-lap event, when Allison dove low going into Turn 1 to attempt a pass. Petty shut him off, using the car driven by Benny Parsons, who was eight laps off the pace but still running fourth in the race, to execute the block. Then the two leaders touched and crashed into the wall, but kept on going. Allison slipped by Petty and into the lead, but the relentless Petty kept came right back. The two cars went into the first turn side-by-side for a second time -- and both slammed straight into the wall again. Still, they both somehow recovered to keep going.

Allison thought he was the only one who had survived. He was certain he had won the race.

Years later, Allison was quoted by Stock Car Magazine as saying of the incident: "I intended to drive him through the wall if necessary. I thought I had parked him. I broke loose and drove away. I was going through the second turn and starting up the backstretch. I heard this car to the inside of me, and it was Richard. I don't know to this day how he got off that wall."

Their cars smashed into each other again, and Petty slipped in front to win the race by a couple of car lengths. Both cars were smoking wrecks.

"He could have put me in the boondocks," a steamed Petty told reporters afterward. "There's not going to be any more trouble until he hurts me. If he does that, there's going to be real trouble. He's playing with my life out there. That I don't like."

Refusing at first to even call Petty by name, Allison retorted: "The other competitor had to wreck me in order to win, and that's what he did."

It was the second race in a row at North Wilkesboro where they finished one-two, with Petty claiming victory. In a footnote, Petty's take for winning the race was $7,200, with Allison earning $4,550 for finishing second before a crowd estimated at 16,000.
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3. Dale Earnhardt vs. The World
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Or perhaps this should be labeled Dale Earnhardt vs. The Establishment.
It was then when Earnhardt, who had led most of the day, was passed every so briefly by Darrell Waltrip for the lead with three laps to go. Earnhardt promptly clipped Waltrip's right-rear quarter-panel, touching off what one writer on the scene later described as "a pile-up of incredible dimensions." It took the top four contenders -- including Waltrip and Earnhardt -- out of the race.

Junior Johnson, Waltrip's crew chief, insisted afterward that Earnhardt's reckless move was akin to pointing a gun at his driver's head "and pulling the trigger."

Waltrip added: "It's been building for nearly two years -- not with me, but with other drivers and him. It's like a 2-year-old saying a nasty word and everyone laughs and wonders what the next word will be. Then there are more words and it's not funny anymore.

"Earnhardt is not choosy. He will run over anybody. He tried to kill me."

Earnhardt insisted he did not take out Waltrip on purpose. "I wasn't trying to wreck him. If I was, I wouldn't have wrecked myself, that's for damn sure. It was a case of driver error."

Yeah, and the steering wheel slipped out of Carl Edwards' hand after Kyle Busch bumped him on that cool-down lap at Bristol, too.
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4. Cale Yarborough vs. Darrell Waltrip
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As the only driver to date to win three consecutive championships from 1976 through 1978, Cale Yarborough often found himself at odds with several other drivers as they sought to knock him from his throne. Perhaps none was more prickly than Darrell Waltrip, who outran Yarborough in the final laps at North Wilkesboro in October 1977 and then made fun of the 38-year-old Yarborough for suggesting a week earlier that NASCAR needed to start shortening its races for the safety of drivers.

"I think his problem could be his years," the 30-year-old Darrell Waltrip said of Yarborough. "I know I'm finding out I can't do the same things I did 10 years ago."

Yarborough disliked Waltrip's constant verbal jabbing and had derisively nicknamed him "Jaws." So Waltrip started rating his victories on what he called, "The Cale Scale," and claimed that he had run down Yarborough with such ease at North Wilkesboro that it rated only "about a one-and-a-half to a two on the Cale Scale."

Later, when car owner Junior Johnson replaced Yarborough with Waltrip behind the wheel, he often would intentionally infuriate Waltrip -- and spur him to run faster laps -- by calling him Cale.
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5. Cale Yarborough vs. Donnie Allison
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For pure hype, this one might be rated No. 1. There is no more famous post-race confrontation than the one that occurred between Cale Yarborough and the Allison brothers, Donnie and Bobby, following the final-lap crash between leaders Donnie and Yarborough in the 1979 Daytona 500 -- the first major NASCAR race to be nationally televised live, from start to finish.

But the fact is, most of the time these two got along okay. So it wasn't really an extended rivalry. For one thing, Donnie wasn't consistently good enough to contend for wins with Yarborough often enough to sustain it.

Despite all that, for pure drama, nothing beats the way they wrecked each other out on that last lap in 1979 -- and then, along with Bobby, engaged in a brief but spirited fistfight that was caught at least partially live on national television afterward.

"It made for good TV," said Yarborough nearly 30 years after the fact, "and people are still talking about it."

By the way, Yarborough posed with Donnie Allison for a photo at Rockingham two weeks following the 1979 Daytona 500, when the next Cup event was held. They were smiling and each had one arm thrown around the other's shoulder. ... Then they went out and wrecked each other again in the ninth lap of the race. Both claimed it had nothing to do with their mishap in Daytona one week earlier.
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6. Dale Earnhardt vs. Geoff Bodine
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Much like Donnie Allison vs. Cale Yarborough, Geoff Bodine wasn't quite good enough to sustain this one for very long. But make no mistake, they were fierce adversaries for a brief while in the mid-1980s -- so much so that the movie Days of Thunder based its confrontation between two drivers on their feud.

After they banged on each other in a series of events and hostilities grew to a fevered pitch, NASCAR president Bill France Jr. ordered both drivers and their team owners to sit down together with him for dinner in Daytona Beach -- setting a tense scene that would be recreated for the Days of Thunder production. France told them the sport didn't need another blood feud like Petty had engaged in for years with Bobby Allison.

"The sport has grown too big for that," France insisted.
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7. Bobby Allison vs. Curtis Turner
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Bobby Allison was just starting out when he showed up at Bowman-Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C., ready to challenge the big NASCAR boys in a non-sanctioned event in the early 1960s.

"Bobby showed up on the circuit in a little Chevelle, and this was when the rest of the guys were running big cars," said Humpy Wheeler, former general manager and president of Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte.
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Curtis was a lover, not a fighter.
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"We had big Fords, big Plymouths and big Dodges. And here comes this little maroon-and-white Chevelle. It was sort of almost a joke at the time."

No one was laughing when Allison kept trying to press Turner, one of NASCAR's biggest stars of the day, for the lead in his pesky little Chevelle. But when he finally took the lead late in the race, Turner promptly ran him down and simply ran him off the racetrack.

There was no Victory Lane at the track back then, so Turner stopped his car near the start-finish line to begin celebrating his latest win. Suddenly, according to Wheeler, who was there, "Here comes Bobby driving his car backward wide open."

Allison slammed into the front of Turner's car, then jumped out and challenged him to a fight. But "Curtis was a lover, not a fighter," and begged off despite being the bigger star at the time, according to Wheeler.
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8. Dale Earnhardt vs. Jeff Gordon
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This is a tricky one built more on myth than substance. While it's true that Dale Earnhardt poked considerable fun at the young Jeff Gordon, who once bore the nickname "Wonder Boy" in the sport, they eventually came to gain mutual respect for each other as drivers -- and became business partners off the track even as their fans worked themselves into a frenzy anytime they raced close together on it.

Earnhardt smirked derisively as Gordon cried after accepting his first points championship trophy. Asked once about the then-newcomer, Earnhardt said of Gordon: "We just don't like the same things. I like to hunt and fish. He likes them video toys."

Actually, they both liked winning -- and making money on and off the track. While they would battle each other fiercely for every inch of turf on a racetrack when necessary, in truth they very rarely wrecked each other and by the time of Earnhardt's death in the 2001 Daytona 500 had great mutual respect for one another as fellow drivers and off-track entrepreneurs.
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9. Jimmy Spencer vs. Kurt Busch
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Kurt Busch thought Jimmy Spencer dumped him during his rookie season at Phoenix. So when he executed a bump-and-run pass at Bristol with 45 laps remaining to take the lead and eventually his first Cup win in March 2002, he made it clear it was a payback. Sound familiar?

Spencer, who hadn't won since 1994 and wouldn't win again before retiring as a driver, was left fuming. "We don't forget. When I smash back, he won't finish," Spencer said.

He arguably smashed back later in Indianapolis, but the animosity really boiled over in August 2003 when Busch claimed to have run out of gas in the garage area after the race -- right in front of Spencer's hauler. When Spencer pulled up shortly thereafter, he rammed Busch's rear bumper, causing it to buckle, and then emerged from his racecar, walked to Busch's driver's side door, exchanged some heated words, and punched Busch through the window.

Spencer was 45 years old at the time. Had he been younger and been able to race more competitively over time, this might have had the potential to develop into one of the greatest rivalries ever because of their genuine personal dislike for one another. Instead, it eventually fizzled out.
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10. Darrell Waltrip vs. Buddy Baker
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A young Darrell Waltrip got so frustrated in dealing with the veteran Buddy Baker that one day he sought advice from fellow driver A.J. Foyt.

"A.J., every time I get behind Buddy Baker, he shakes his fist at me. Every time. I don't know what he's trying to tell me. I don't know what to do about it," Waltrip said.

"Next time," Foyt replied, "about the time he takes that hand off the steering wheel and sticks it up in the air, knock the hell out of him. I guarantee you he won't never shake his fist at you again."

"So I tried it -- and it worked!" Waltrip exclaimed many years later.