NASCAR will be hard-pressed to have any race from Richmond with more subplots than Neil Bonnett's win in '88.
The victory was monumental for Hoosier as it ended a streak of 526 straight Cup wins by Goodyear.Thirty-five years ago, NASCAR Cup Series drivers and teams converged on Richmond Raceway for the second race of the 1988 season.
• It was the year of the Goodyear vs. Hoosier tire war, and drivers were running on the raw edge as the two tirebuilders tried to outrun each other in speed while tiptoeing along the edge of safety.had won the season-opening Daytona 500 the previous week, Richard Petty was in the headlines. During the 500, he had endured one of the roughest wrecks of his long career, flipping several times along the Daytona frontstretch before being hammered by Brett Bodine’s car.
All things considered, it was a jumble of a day, and no one should have been surprised when there was an unexpected winner. There was post-race controversy, with Rudd claiming Bonnett had lost two laps during a green-flag pit stop and that only one of those laps had been made up. NASCAR’s review left Bonnett, who rode on Hoosier tires, with the win, however.The tire war would continue through the season, with both manufacturers recording successes and failures—and numerous drivers suffering injuries—before Hoosier pulled out of Cup racing in May 1989.
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