|| *Comments on the 1986 Nationwise 500:* View the most recent comment <#12> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. Matt posted: 06.04.2006 - 8:23 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Final Cup start for Joe Millikan who was an extremely talented driver that for whatever reason was unable to string together a long career. 2. Darrell posted: 09.23.2006 - 3:12 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) He even finished higher than Dale Earnhardt in the standings their rookie year of 1979. That says a lot. With all due respect to Dale, I'm still scratching my head as to why they gave him ROTY. 3. Steve posted: 12.13.2006 - 12:33 am Rate this comment: (3) (0) Back in 1979, Joe had an average finish of 12.6; Earnhardt averaged 10.7. Dale won a race, 4 poles, and scored 11 Top 5s and 17 Top 10s. Joe had just 5 Top 5s with 20 Top 10s, with a best finish of 2nd at the Rock in March. Had Dale not been injured at Pocono, he would have finished ahead of Joe Millikan in the standings. 4. myself posted: 03.15.2007 - 2:29 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) Ole' Bonnett....2 things he was definitely great at: 1-racing @ Rockingham & 2-getting injured! 5. myself posted: 03.15.2007 - 2:30 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This was also Bonnett's final win for Junior Johnson. I always thought he got the 2nd best stuff from Junior while driving for him. 6. Anonymous posted: 10.30.2007 - 1:22 am Rate this comment: (0) (1) Neil got injured 'cause he must have had glass bones, that's why. 7. Billy Kingsley posted: 11.13.2007 - 4:35 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Joe Millikan was a crew member on the #2 ACE Truck in the late 90s when Mike Bliss was driving for the team. 8. most posted: 05.08.2008 - 4:26 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Yep, and Joe was a truck driver for Roush and was injured last year in a highway crash driving the rig 9. SweetRich posted: 02.20.2020 - 6:05 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The Commentators For The Race Were Ken Squier And Benny Parsons. The Pit Road Reporters Were Chris Economaki And Jerry Garrett. And Anchoring The STP Pit Communication Center Was Dave Despain. 10. NewGuyOnTheBlock posted: 07.22.2020 - 6:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) TBS broadcast this race. 11. NewGuyOnTheBlock posted: 07.24.2020 - 7:38 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Neil Bonnett's final win for Junior Johnson kind of came out of nowhere. While the focus of the race was the title fight between Earnhardt, Waltrip, and Richmond, Bonnett snuck his way into the lead on a late-race restart, leading 80 laps and grabbing his only win of a disappointing 1986 season. Ricky Rudd was the favorite of many to win the race based on his excellent practice speed, but he would never lead a lap during the actual event. Rudd ran inside the top-5 all afternoon, coming home in second. It would end up being his last top-5 and top-10 finish of the season. Darrell Waltrip needed to be perfect in order to close in on Dale Earnhardt in the points battle. The #11 managed to lead for 35 laps and was leading when a caution came out with 68 laps to go. Waltrip dove into the pits, only to emerge as the last car on the lead lap. What had happened? Simple: his jack had broke. Waltrip managed to recover to finish third, but a crucial victory had eluded him. Harry Gant's fifth-straight top-5 finish was nothing short of a miracle, as Gant battled a dangerously loose racecar all afternoon. The #33 was sideways through the corners and went through every single set of tires multiple times over. Gant incredibly managed to lead for 5 laps and finished in fourth. Buddy Baker was a threat to win throughout the race, leading 4 laps and coming home in fifth for his third-straight top-5 finish. However, his elusive first win at "the Rock" would not materialize. Dale Earnhardt led for 94 laps and looked to be en route for a possible championship-clinching victory. But a sudden mechanical problem knocked him two laps off the pace at the worst possible moment. Earnhardt managed to get one of his laps back but would end up finishing a lap down in sixth. Still, the top-10 plus the bonus points from leading a lap kept him 144 points clear of Waltrip. While he managed to come home only 1 lap down in seventh, it was a rough day for Bill Elliott. The #9 Ford was off the pace throughout the day, despite a solid start to the afternoon. Richard Petty led a lap during green-flag pitstops and came home with an eighth-place finish, 1 lap down. Like Harry Gant, Petty had to battle an extremely loose racecar throughout the event. Joe Ruttman was not expecting a top-10 finish, or to be the highest finishing Buick. Turns out that rabbit's foot that the King Racing crew had put in the car worked, as Ruttman finished 2 laps down in ninth, a solid run for the team. Kyle Petty completed the top-10 with a solid tenth-place run, finishing 3 laps down. Bobby Hillin Jr. came close to a top-10 finish but was nipped at the line by Kyle Petty. The driver of car #8 still came away with an excellent run, finishing 3 laps down in eleventh. Alan Kulwicki was well on his way to Rookie of the Year at this point, as he continued to outperform his equipment while ROTY contender Michael Waltrip and Chet Fillip were pretty much eliminated. Kulwicki ran a solid race, finishing 6 laps down in twelfth. While he had been a model of consistency throughout the fall months, a lack of top-10 finishes for Michael Waltrip meant that ROTY honors would escape him for 1986. He finished 9 laps down in thirteenth. Ken Schrader turned in another solid performance, keeping out of trouble and finishing 9 laps down in fourteenth. Midwest racing legend Dick Trickle made his second and final start of the 1986 season, driving the #42 Matthews Racing Chevy to a fifteenth-place finish, 10 laps off the pace. This would be the final start for Matthews Racing, as the team folded during the off-season. Eddie Bierschwale had an incident-free race for the first time in months, though his K-Care Chevy was still incredibly slow. Bierschwale finished 13 laps down in sixteenth. A solid performance from Buddy Arrington saw the veteran score another top-20 finish, coming home 16 laps down in seventeenth. Charlie Baker, a regular on the Great American Truck Racing series for semi-trucks, made his first start since 1982 and tied his career-best finish of eighteenth, finishing 35 laps off the pace. Baker was driving for Salmon Racing, who were making their debut in NASCAR. Rusty Wallace had a top-10 car early on, but mechanical gremlins would keep him in the pits for much of the middle of the race. Wallace would manage to salvage a top-20 finish, coming home 39 laps down in nineteenth. Tim Richmond's championship hopes vanished in an instant when a sudden driveshaft issue nearly sent him into the inside wall on a restart. Richmond had dominated the first part of the race, leading 132 laps out of the first 133. The mechanical issues were eventually fixed, with Richmond returning to the track 50 laps down. Richmond would finish in twentieth, mathematically eliminating him from the championship. J.D. McDuffie made the final start of his 1986 season, finishing 51 laps down in twenty-first. McDuffie would fail to qualify for the nest race in Atlanta, eventually deciding not to contest the season finale in California. Jimmy Means crawled his way home to twenty-second-place finish, 61 laps down after mechanical issues plagued him throughout the race. Mike Skinner's third and final start of the 1986 season saw him struggle in his first non-short track race. Skinner was easily the slowest car on track, finishing 63 laps down in twenty-third. This would be the final start for the Zanworth Racing Team, which fielded cars for Skinner during 1986. Morgan Shepherd and the RahMoc #75 team were easily the fastest on track, leading 144 laps. But, as had happened so many times since Shepherd had joined the team, a mechanical issue sent the Pontiac to the garage. In this case, Shepherd suffered a broken driveshaft after 402 laps. Bobby Allison ran well early, but engine troubles would knock him down the running order. He eventually dropped out after 382 laps. This DNF was the last in a string of bad finishes that knocked Allison down from 4th in points entering Dover to 8th in points. Mike Potter's third and final start of the year saw him take over the wheel of Elmo Langley's #64 Ford, now with Bull Frog Knits as a primary sponsor. Potter made it 375 laps before brake failure forced him to retire. Rookie Jonathan Lee Edwards made the final start of his 1986 campaign, which had mostly been a forgetful one due to the amount of DNQ's he accumulated. Suffering from fatigue, Edwards handed the car off to Bobby Wawak shortly after halfway, with Wawak making it 343 laps before a crash forced him to retire. Tommie Crozier's last start of the year lasted much further than his previous start, as he made it 268 laps into the event before his driveshaft gave up. Bobby Wawak spent much of the afternoon nursing a smoking car around the bottom of the track. Wawak would eventually retire with a blown engine after 267 laps, though his day wasn't done just yet as he jumped behind the wheel of Jonathan Lee Edward's car to close out the race. Wawak would eventually crash down the backstretch, bringing out a crucial caution that allowed Neil Bonnett to take the lead for good. Mark Stahl was nearly black-flagged by NASCAR, as his car had spun out early in the race and he had been unable to get it back up to speed. Stahl eventually dropped out of the race with overheating issues before NASCAR could penalize him after 267 laps. Terry Labonte continued to be plagued by engine issues, as his Oldsmobile engine once again expired after 226 laps. Geoff Bodine qualified on the outside of the front row and ran inside the top-5 early. Despite an early brush with the wall, Bodine seemed to have a top-5 finish locked up until his engine expired after 201 laps. Like Bodine, Cale Yarborough ran inside the top-5 early until his ignition broke after 200 laps, putting him behind the wall. Dave Marcis was making his way towards the top-10 when his engine expired after 151 laps. Tommy Ellis managed to recover from a brush with the wall early on, but eventually handling issues forced him to retire after 130 laps. Johnny Coy Jr. made his second start of the year in James Hylton's #48. Coy would back it into the wall on lap 133, ending his race relatively early. Canadian Trevor Boys took over the DiGard #10 for this race, retiring with brake failure after 111 laps. This would end up being the final start of the season for Boys. Joe Millikan made the final start of his Winston Cup career, retiring with an oil leak after 50 laps. It's a major shame that Millikan was never able to truly show his potential, as his career truly ended before it even began. 53-year-old Buddie Boys made the final start of his career, racing against son Trevor. Buddie retired with brake issues after just 40 laps. Ronnie Thomas was the first to fall out of the race, retiring with overheating issues after 9 laps. 12. zuel660 posted: 01.24.2021 - 7:45 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Terry Labonte's 10th engine related DNF of the season...ouch. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: