When Darrell Waltrip took the checkered flag in the Busch 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway back in 1982, a sold-out crowd of 30,000 watched him do it. But how many of today’s Nextel Cup stars saw it? Or were even around back then?
The consecutive streak sellout of Nextel Cup events at BMS now stands at 50 strong with the upcoming March 25 Food City 500 but back when it began Kyle Busch was two years away from even being born, Brian Vickers wouldn’t make his entrance into the world for a year and it would be three years before Mr. and Mrs. Sorenson gave birth to a son named Reed.
In ’82 defending Nextel Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, 2006 Food City 500 winner Kevin Harvick and Juan Pablo Montoya were just getting used to racing to school as all three were six years old and heading off to first-grade.
Even younger was five-time Bristol champ Kurt Busch who was just four years old when Waltrip won his sixth straight Bristol race in a string of seven. Ryan Newman and Casey Mears were also four-year-olds at the time.
NASCAR’s most popular driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr., had already been to victory lane – with his father Dale Earnhardt – at age seven and Elliott Sadler too had just celebrated his seventh birthday.
Kasey Kahne was 28 months old and Denny Hamlin was 21 months old while Carl Edwards was likely a few years away from doing back flips at age three.
Some of today’s brightest stars had already embarked on racing careers, including precocious 11-year-olds Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart and a 10-year-old Matt Kenseth. Jeff Burton was 15 and Greg Biffle was 12 while Mark Martin was already 23.
Three drivers competed in that 1982 race that still race today. Mark Martin, who is not expected to race in this year’s Food City 500, was 23-years old and competing in his first full year as a driver/owner. Kyle Petty was 22 and Ricky Rudd, both of whom are in this year’s field, was 25.
Now, all of these years later, these NASCAR stars will take part in the sold-out Food City 500, which also will be the final race on the present concrete race surface. Immediately after the race, a new concrete surface will be laid and in place for the Sharpie 500 race weekend in August.
