Published: August 27, 2008 11:42 pm            

Bill Elliott and the good ’ol days

Christian Potts' Victory Lane

A lot was going on 23 years ago. Ronald Reagan was in the oval office, Madonna was in the groove, a first-class stamp cost 22 cents and, for those who like this sort of thing, Wrestlemania made its debut.

It also was the year “Awesome Bill from Dawsonville” had a season to remember in NASCAR.

It was not the only chapter in a fine career for Bill Elliott. He went on to win a total of 44 races in his career and was the series champion in 1988.

As a young fan, really following NASCAR for the first time in 1985, I was like many others, a fan of the personable and popular driver with an accent that was strange, even among the natives of his home state of Georgia.

And in that year, Elliott made some of his biggest headlines, winning 11 races. The biggest of the victories came almost 23 years ago to this date, Sept. 1, 1985, at the Southern 500 at Darlington.

Winston had put up a $1 million bonus for any driver to win three out of what it deemed the series’ top four races. Elliott already had won the Daytona 500 and Talladega 500, and when he crossed the finish line first at Darlington, it was at that time a record payday.

“Crossing that finish line was the pinnacle of my still-young career,” Elliott said on his Web site, billelliott.com. “Two years earlier we had gotten our first win, and that was big. Then we had our first Daytona win earlier in 1985. That was huge.

“This win was not only our 10th of the season, but it was the inaugural Winston Million. We had accomplished something that no other team or driver in the history of the sport had ever done.”

(Perhaps showing the silliness of the NASCAR points system, Elliott actually did not win the series championship that year. He was second to Darrell Waltrip.)

Twenty-three years later, Elliott is still on the scene. He gets behind the wheel some, having started 11 races for the Wood Brothers this season.

He’s been in more of an advisory role for other young drivers on the team the last couple of years, and he also was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame last summer.

“Being under the car and behind the wheel has always given me a lot of satisfaction and a lot of joy, but the best thing about my career has been the fans,” he said. “I look forward to seeing them in the years ahead and beyond.”

Many more millions of dollars will be won by racers. But nobody else ever will be the first to do it, or go about things quite like Bill Elliott has.

Notes of note

Jimmie Johnson has won each of the last two races at this weekend’s stop, Auto Club Speedway ... Only points leaders Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards have clinched spots in the Chase for the Sprint Cup with two races to go ... Clint Bowyer and Brad Keselowski are developing their own 1-2 battle on the Nationwide Series, with just 122 points separating them after Keselowski’s victory last week ... Bristol’s big points loser was Kasey Kahne, whose 40th-place run dropped him to 14th in the standings, two spots out of the Chase.

        

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