In April 1993 when NASCAR
came to Thunder Valley, it was with a heavy heart. On a rainy
Friday morning, the checkered flag dropped on the No. 7 Alan
Kulwicki Racing transporter as it exited the speedway one last
time. Hours earlier, Alan Kulwicki was killed in a plane crash
along with representatives from his sponsor, Hooters. The driver
who had jokingly removed the “TH” from his Ford
Thunderbird air dam decal and applied a Mighty Mouse logo on his
uniform would not be present to defend his title as 1992 Winston
Cup Champion, or as the defending champion of the Food City 500 at
Bristol.
Alan Kulwicki was born on December 14, 1954 in Greenfield,
Wisconsin. He was a pioneer in the sport, coming to NASCAR through the Midwest’s ASA series, which produced such luminaries as Rusty
Wallace, Mark Martin, and Dick Trickle. Kulwicki was one of the
first drivers to complete college, graduating from the University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1977, with a degree in Mechanical
Engineering. Alan used his education and experience to his
advantage; always getting more out of less, and doing things
smarter than the other guy. Legendary car owner Junior Johnson was
once asked which driver he would have wanted to drive for him that
never did. The two names that came to mind were seven-time Champion
Dale Earnhardt, and Kulwicki. Johnson was convinced that having a
driver who was just as (if not more) mechanically adept as he or
the people he had assembling the car would have made them a force
to be reckoned with.
Alan was a master of doing more with less. During his first full
year of competition in 1986, he was an oddity in the garage area.
He not only carried a helmet bag, but a briefcase as well. Being an
owner in addition to a driver meant having to wear many hats. That
meant keeping a comb in the car too, always conscious of his
appearance for current and potential sponsors. Steve Hmiel, now
Technical Director of DEI, said he would
always remember Alan for having “cool socks”, something
he noticed prior to Kulwicki receiving his Winston Cup title at the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in 1992. Alan was also a devout Catholic;
putting a pair of St. Christopher wings under his driver’s
seat for protection. Having an extra set of eyes looking out for
you is never a bad thing, and the angels were able to fly low
enough to help guide him to Rookie of The Year Honors, driving his
No. 35 Quincy Steakhouse Fords. Alan was in the Ford camp long
before Ford’s became chic in the late 90’s. Although he
was competing with only a pair of Thunderbirds, a pair of engines,
and a pair of full-time crewmen, it was enough to get the job
done.
As the 1998 season wound down, he scored his first victory in
the Checker Auto Parts 500 in Phoenix, AZ. The unconventional track
was mastered by the unconventional driver, who after the race
whipped his car around and proceeded to drive clock-wise around the
track, in salute to the fans. He deemed it his “Polish
Victory Lap”, which was mimicked in tribute throughout the
1993 season by both Rusty Wallace and the late Dale Earnhardt.
Alan’s No. 7 Zerex Fords were a mainstay on the
NASCAR circuit through 1990. When Zerex
didn’t return for the 1991 season, he began the year driving
the original US Army car, which was part of an effort by the US
Military to support the troops who had begun Operation Desert Storm
by sponsoring cars from each branch of service for the Daytona 500.
His car would have blank quarter panels for the next two weeks, but
the following week at Atlanta, Hooters Restaurants came aboard as
his primary sponsor. The new partnership got off to a strong start;
Kulwicki put the Hooters Ford on the pole at Atlanta and led eight
laps before posting an eighth place finish. He would score a win at
the night race in Bristol later in the year, and post a 13th place
finish in points.
1992 would be his defining year. He scored his first win of the
season again at Bristol, and later in the year won at Pocono. He
was in contention for the title all year long, and things were
looking up until he got to Dover in the fall. He would win the
pole, but crashed during the race, relegating him to a 34th place
finish. Alan was quite vocal afterwards that his 278 point deficit
would probably be his undoing and keep him from challenging for the
championship. In the next five races, he went got on a roll,
posting two Top 5s and no finish worse than 12th. Heading into the
final race at Atlanta, Alan was in contention to win the
championship, along with five other drivers, in what would be one
of the most memorable races in NASCAR
history.
This race marked the end of a career for Richard Petty, and the
beginning of a new chapter in NASCAR with
Jeff Gordon’s debut. During the race, misfortune befell
championship rivals Davey Alison, Kyle Petty, Mark Martin, and
Harry Gant, leaving the battle down to Alan and Bill Elliott. In a
series that now relies on a ten race Chase for drama, the final
handful of laps provided what was to be the closest finish in
Winston Cup history. Elliot managed to win the race, his fifth of
the year, but Kulwicki won the war. Using fuel strategy, courtesy
of crew chief Paul Andrews, he stayed out and led one more lap than
Elliott, claiming the five extra bonus points he needed to win the
title by a mere ten points, the closest margin in history until
2004. The Champion emerged, comb in hand, and stood atop the No. 7
“Underbird” giving little more than a thumbs up and
sigh of disbelief. The driver, who a few years earlier survived a
trailer fire as he was preparing to leave Cheeseland for Tobacco
Road, had just won the most prized championship in auto racing, and
defeated two legends in Elliott and Junior Johnson in the
process.
In a few short years, Alan Kulwicki had done it all. From being
an owner/driver/engineer/mechanic, to being the first driver to win
a Championship from the North, as well as the last owner-driver to
win a Championship, Kulwicki did what no other drivers before or
since have been able to do. It was fitting that the song played at
the end of the 1992 Awards Banquet was Frank Sinatra’s
“My Way”. Kulwicki had turned down offers from several
high-profile owners in the sport in order to run his own operation
the way he wanted to run it. The team was eventually sold to Geoff
Bodine and was later owned by Jim Mattei. The team is long since
defunct, but the No. 7 owner-driver spirit lives on today with
privateer Ford driver Robby Gordon doing the impossible.
The 1993 Food City 500 at Bristol was fittingly won by longtime
friend and competitor Rusty Wallace. Wallace, with No. 7 flag in
hand, made the clockwise trip around Bristol Motor Speedway in
salute to his fallen friend. Later that year at Pocono, the site of
Alan’s final win, Dale Earnhardt offered the same tribute,
along with a finish line group prayer with the entire Goodwrench
team. For the rest of the season following the April 1st plane
crash that also claimed the life of the son of Hooter’s
CEO Bob Brooks, every team carried the
trademarked No. 7 decals on their car in tribute to the
Champion.
Alan was named to NASCAR’s Top 50 Drivers of All Time in
1998, and in 2002, Alan was inducted into the International
Motosports Hall of Fame. In 2005, a low budget motion picture
titled, “Dare To Dream: The Alan Kulwicki Story”,
produced for less than $100,000, was showcased in 14 states and 80
cities nationwide.
Alan Kulwicki’s name and likeness always conjures up a
barrage of imagery. Alan pushing his car on the last lap after it
ran out of fuel at Watkins Glen; taking a Polish Victory Lap after
winning a race; the heartbreaking sight of his transporter exiting
the racetrack one rainy spring morning; or his cool socks: Alan
Kulwicki was one of a kind. And he did it HIS Way.
Looking directly across the street from this cache,
on the gently rolling hillside, you will see the site of the
fateful plane crash that took the life of this special driver in
1993. There are no markers, plaques, or memorials, but the
memory of Alan Kulwicki will remain forever in the hearts of NASCAR
fans forever.