AAA 400 - Notable Races

Notable Races

• 1971: Bobby Allison dominated the race until a lug bolt broke on a pit stop, putting Richard Petty into the lead in the final 100 laps en route to the win.
• 1975: Richard Petty put the entire field two laps down until at Lap 350 he ran over debris from a backmarker's blown engine that broke a tie rod. Petty spent eight laps in the pits getting a new tie rod and came out six laps down. While Lennie Pond blew his engine Petty erased all six laps, but needed a late yellow when Buddy Arrington stopped on the track with fifteen to go. Petty breezed to the win, leaving runner-up Dick Brooks angry at Arrington, who'd recently purchased a transporter from Petty Enterprises: "I guess Arrington needed that truck paid for."
• 1976: Cale Yarborough lost two laps on two separate occasions and made them up en route to the win.
• 1977: Benny Parsons dominated the race after Lap 250.
• 1978: Bobby Allison won after a recent visit to the Mayo Clinic for a checkup.
• 1979: Richard Petty, Donnie Allison, and Cale Yarborough battled over the final 30 laps; Petty edged Allison by a hood at the stripe.
• 1983: Bobby Allison edged Geoff Bodine for the win, his sixth of the season en route to his only Winston Cup title.
• 1986: Ricky Rudd took his first Dover win as title contenders Dale Earnhardt and Tim Richmond crashed and raced each other with damaged race cars despite being multiple laps down.
• 1991: Multiple crashes put Harry Gant alone on the lead lap for his third straight win of September 1991.
• 1992: Ricky Rudd edged Bill Elliott as Alan Kulwicki crashed, putting him seemingly out of the season point chase.
• 1993: Tire failures and crashes, including a multi-car melee detonated when Rusty Wallace hammered another car into the path of the leaders, plagued the 1993 500 won by Wallace.
• 1995: In a race with only five yellows Jeff Gordon and Bobby Hamilton dominated en route to a 1-2 finish.
• 1996: Gordon and Dale Earnhardt battled amid an epidemic of crashes. Ernie Irvan crashed ahead of Derrike Cope and crew chief Larry McReynolds attacked Cope in the garage area. A three-car melee led to a near-brawl on the track between Jimmy Spencer and Wally Dallenbach, Jr. Following this race NASCAR raised the sanction fee for a 500-mile race, forcing Dover to cut back to 400 miles.
• 2001: In the first NASCAR sactioned Cup race following the September 11, 2001 attacks, (the previous race scheduled for New Hampshire Speedway was postponed until the end of the season) a silent lap 3, which was a season-long scheduled event in memory of Dale Earnhardt who had died in a crash in the 2001 Daytona 500, was changed to include the memory of the victims of the attacks. Dale Earnhardt Jr won the race and celebrated by doing a Polish victory lap while holding an American flag in salute.
• 2006: Jeff Burton broke a 185 race winless streak passing Matt Kenseth with 8 laps to go. This was a very emotional win for Jeff.
• 2009: Joey Logano flipped 8 times in turn 3 after being tapped by Tony Stewart, Though a couple cars ahead of Logano had braked going into the corner. Joey was OK after the wreck.