|| *Comments on the 1995 First Union 400:* View the most recent comment <#22> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. Mr. Etc posted: 03.17.2006 - 7:40 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) lol @ Steve Grissom being in the top 10 in points and missing a race at this point in the season. 2. Darrell posted: 03.26.2006 - 4:00 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Brett Bodine had his best race of the season here. And an add-on to Mr. Etc's comment, Derrike Cope was having a very good season too at this point, but started to fall off here. 3. Steve posted: 07.20.2006 - 10:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) You're right, Darrell. Derrike Cope had just one Top 10 (7th at New Hampshire) and 5 Top 15s in the next 15 races (including this race). However, in the last 10 races, he had 7 Top 15s and 8 Top 20s, including finishing 2nd to Ricky Rudd at Phoenix. He had just one DNF (rear end problems at Richmond), and he completed 3930 of 4034 possible laps (97.4%). Despite two Winston Cup wins in 1990, I think this was Derrike's best season. 4. nascarman posted: 11.24.2006 - 5:21 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) It was very hot for a race in April with the temp as hot as 85 degees. As you can see with 2 of the 3 drivers who fell out because of fatigue. 5. biffle16 posted: 12.26.2006 - 6:42 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Last race before the Oklahoma City attacks. 6. Anonymous posted: 09.16.2007 - 4:12 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I remember that it was exceptionally hot out there, and many drivers became fatigued. Both Greg Sacks and Kyle Petty retired from heat exhaustion (further helping the case of the "Kyle Petty has AIDS, he's gonna die" rumor). 7. RaceFanX posted: 01.06.2008 - 2:43 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Last NASCAR attempt for Steve Kinser, who DNQed at this race. After this race, his second DNQ in a row, Kinser was fired by owner Kenny Bernstein and replaced with Hut Stricklin for the rest of the season. Kinser went back to the World of Outlaws, now backed by his NASCAR sponsor Quaker State, and picked up right where he left off by winning countless races and more championships 8. Breaker posted: 05.08.2008 - 10:30 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Earnhardt drove a number of laps in this race with his right arm resting on one of the roll bars. He won by over 13 seconds. 9. Zeppelin posted: 10.05.2008 - 7:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The firt race I ever saw. 10. Anonymous posted: 08.22.2010 - 7:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Attendance: approx. 50,000 11. Anonymous posted: 08.22.2010 - 7:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This was the first race at North Wilkesboro to use the long pit road that went from turn 3 around to turn 2. 12. wrank fakefield posted: 08.01.2014 - 2:14 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) excessive tire wear made for a tire conservation race, with little on track racing. To be blunt, unless you were partial to watching Earnhardt run off and hide, this race was boring as hell, with drivers holding position and just trying to make the tires last until the next pit stop. This was the early days of espn using driver communication as part of their telecast, and almost all the radio chatter was about pacing and conserving tires. To be fair, Kyle Petty went into this race sick, and was looking for a relief driver well before halfway, but due to the ultra-conservative driving, no one had fallen out of the race. To his credit, he toughed it out until the 42 couldn't gain or lose any more positions before retiring. 13. Bailey Canterbury posted: 08.17.2014 - 10:05 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kyle Petty got caught speeding 7 or 8 times in-a-row on pit road under green flag conditions. I remeber Ned Jarrett in the booth kept saying "They got him again. Kyle Petty's got come back in yet again" 14. Burton22fan posted: 08.23.2014 - 4:13 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I remember Jeff Burton had to be treated for fatigue after the race as well. 15. Anonymous posted: 03.12.2017 - 11:55 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Dick Trickle started a lap down from the pits after his car would not start due to battery issues. He experienced battery issues later in the race too. 16. kornnut43 posted: 11.16.2018 - 1:52 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) In reply to post number 13, that happened in the 1995 Tyson Holly Farms 400, the Fall race here at North Wilkesboro... and yeah, it was three speeding penalties in a row I believe. 17. RaceFanX posted: 12.18.2018 - 9:15 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Dale Earnhardt picks up his first win of 1995 and does so in dominant fashion, leading more than half the race and winning it by a comfortable margin over Jeff Gordon. This was the fifth, and final, win for Earnhardt at North Wilkesboro. @1 Former Busch Series champion Grissom was off to a great start in 1995 as shown here where he came home fifth to post his first career Cup series top-5 finish. Despite that shock DNQ at Richmond, while in the top-5 in points, he and the Diamond Ridge #29 Meineke Chevrolet team had posted four top-10 finishes in the first seven races. Grissom's fifth-place finish here would be his best of the season and it propelled him from 13th to ninth in the points standings...but he'd fall out of the top-10 for good after trouble at Talladega and would finish no better than 13th throughout the rest of the season as the team faded from contention. 18. Jimnsimforever posted: 03.01.2019 - 4:19 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Are the lap leaders listed the way it officially was scored by Nascar? Just wondering because Brett Bodine for sure led the first 8 laps of this race and Gordon didn't lead his first lap until the 9th lap. 19. David posted: 03.02.2019 - 9:49 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) The leader sequence shown here matches NASCAR's official race report. 20. Jaytch posted: 05.23.2020 - 9:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I remember reading a clip in "Winston Cup Scene" about Kyle Petty flipping the flagman off after NASCAR black-flagged him a few times in this race (before he finally parked it because of fatigue). Also: Earnhardt got out of his car in victory lane without taking the steering wheel off to show he was trimmer and in better shape than he was in 1994. 21. Anonymous posted: 05.24.2020 - 2:16 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I believe that Kyle was suffering from pneumonia (or even double pneumonia), which hampered him for two or three months in 1995 and, as noted, led to the contemptible rumor that he was dying of AIDS; Kyle may even have been forced to call a press conference to dispel it. Without revisiting my recording of his final victory at Dover, I am certain that he required oxygen in victory lane, though by the summer he had recovered, or at least it was no longer a concern. As for why Kyle's illness prompted that type of speculation, double pneumonia was the official explanation for Tim Richmond's disappearance at the start of the 1987 season, and was a common -- often the first -- symptom or development experienced by HIV patients before retroviral treatment became available; Richmond probably did have severe pneumonia at the beginning. And throughout his career, Kyle had a diverse array of interests, a slightly unconventional lifestyle -- his country music album, for a start -- which may have contributed to it as well. It's not a coincidence that Kyle was one of the few drivers of that generation who refused to disown Tim Richmond, as NASCAR's policy for many years dictated. Actually, one reason why I respect Kyle so much is because he never allowed himself to be defined by his racing accomplishments, or his relationship with his father (which was tumultuous, to put it mildly). Motor racing is a sport which which rewards obsessive behavior and single-minded devotion, yet Kyle was a full, well-rounded individual, with other passions and outlets; I distinctly remember a pre-race segment from FOX or NBC where Kyle revealed that he was in the process of reading multiple books, putting his fellow drivers to shame. I always had the sense that he could have distinguished himself in any one of a number of different pursuits, not simply in NASCAR, as his charitable efforts over the years have demonstrated. 22. Charlie posted: 07.01.2020 - 11:42 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I think it's crazy that if Grissom would have made the race he missed, and earned his average amount of points, he'd have been third in points after this race. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: