Wallace’s 15th Place Worth $1 Million

On a chill, gray Sunday in Georgia, a redhead from Missouri realized his wildest childhood dream.

Just barely.

Rusty Wallace, who used to terrorize residents of Arnold, Mo., when he was a teen-ager, racing his skateboard around the neighborhood pretending he was the champion of stock car racing, finished 15th in the Atlanta Journal 500, but it was enough to win the NASCAR Winston Cup championship and the $1-million bonus that goes with it.

The race, before a record Atlanta International Raceway crowd of 80,000, was marred by the death of Grant Adcox, 39, a part-time Winston Cup driver from Chattanooga, Tenn., who succumbed to massive head and chest injuries after crashing on the 202nd lap of the 328-lap event.

He was four laps behind the leaders at the time.

Dale Earnhardt, three-time champion from Mooresville, N. C., did all in his power to steal the title from Wallace by dominating the day, winning the race and leading 294 of the 328 laps. He made up 67 points on Wallace, but was 12 short of winning his fourth Winston Cup.

Earnhardt was three laps up on Wallace at the checkered flag, but Wallace had to finish worse than 18th for Earnhardt to have a chance to win the points title.

“We had two flat tires, a loose lug nut, the wrong chassis setup at the start and a bad vibration that I thought was another flat, but that’s history now. I’m the 1989 champion and that’s what we came here for,” a jubilant Wallace said after climbing out of his white and green Pontiac.

First, though, he jumped up and down on the roof, leaped to the hood as if he was on a trampoline and then bounced to the track, arms lifted in triumph.

“For a time out there when it felt like the whole thing was slipping away, it was the biggest nightmare of my life. But when I came around for that last lap and realized I had won the championship, it was the most glorious feeling in the world,” Wallace said.

“What a roller-coaster ride. I felt that if I lost it, it would be a tragedy because we had won six races and run better than anyone else all season, and that’s what it’s all about.

“But I cut it a lot closer than I’d planned.”

After 100 laps, Wallace had dropped two laps behind Earnhardt because of an unscheduled pit stop for what he mistakenly thought was a flat tire. Wallace was running in 28th position. He moved up when attrition--wrecks and blown engines--knocked eight cars from the race and dropped several others as many as 10 laps off the pace.

Although seven other drivers led for at least a lap, the race belonged to Earnhardt from the second time around the 1.522-mile track when he swept his black Chevrolet Lumina around first-lap leader Ken Schrader and moved steadily ahead. At one point in mid-race, before a yellow caution flag pulled the field together, Earnhardt had more than half a lap lead.

“I want to congratulate Rusty on a great season because we did everything in our power to keep him from the championship and still came up short,” Earnhardt said. “We ended up the season on a winning note, though, and maybe we’ll start out on the same note at Daytona.

“The way Richard (car owner Childress) and Kirk (crew chief Shelmerdine) had the car running today, we’re ready to go to Daytona right now.”

The Daytona 500 will open the 1990 season on Feb. 18.

Earnhardt earned $81,700 Sunday. By finishing ahead of Mark Martin he moved into second place in the season standings and will collect $330,000 at the Winston Cup banquet where Wallace will get his million.

Martin, who started the day one point in front of Earnhardt, was running eighth on lap 227 when the engine blew on his Ford Thunderbird and flames flashed from the rear end. He was credited for 30th position.

“It was the first engine we lost all season, but we just used it up,” said Martin. “We rolled the dice and made some decisions that didn’t work out. But Earnhardt was running so strong that he forced us to work harder than we’d planned.

“We went out in a ball of flames, but I can’t wait for 1990 to start.”

Schrader was second starting the last lap, nearly 10 seconds ahead of Geoff Bodine and Sterling Marlin, the only other drivers on the lead lap, when his Chevy suddenly lost power and allowed Bodine and Marlin to sweep past into second and third place.

Alan Kulwicki, the top qualifier who was trying to win a $410,400 bonus by winning from pole in his Ford, finished 13th.