|| *Comments on the 1996 Coca-Cola 600:* View the most recent comment <#40> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. tquievryn posted: 01.03.2005 - 9:19 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Dale Jarrett won the 2nd race in the Winston Million thanks to Kyle Petty. Petty, who was mad after being penalized took out the big challengers including Rusty Wallace, late in the race, finally clearing the win to victory for Jarrett. Notes; After the race, Petty stormed NASCAR's trailer and had choice words for Bill France Jr. Angry that Dale Earnhardt, was not penalized ever, despite his aggressiveness, his team to a paint scheme to Dover similar to the Indimidator 2. Matt posted: 10.14.2005 - 12:53 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) Johnny Benson and Ricky Craven were involved in a scary crash on lap 193. 3. HomeDepot20TS posted: 04.18.2006 - 5:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) That wreck (Benson/Craven) scared the hell out of me. 4. Steve posted: 05.13.2006 - 12:19 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I think Kyle Petty was penalized 5 laps after making contact with Ted Musgrave. Ted even said after the crash that it was his own fault, not Kyle's. But NA$CAR penalized him anyway. 5. CanucksAndNASCAR Fan posted: 05.17.2006 - 7:39 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The Craven/Benson wreck saw Craven shred the whole rear end away from Benson's car. 6. Thomas posted: 09.06.2006 - 6:03 am Rate this comment: (0) (1) Yep, the crash happened on a restart on the frontstretch. Ted Musgrave said in the interview that he simply misjudged it and missed a shift, causing Kyle to get into his rear bumper, sending him spinning along with many other cars all the way to the middle of turns 1 and 2. 7. Thomas posted: 09.06.2006 - 6:06 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I also remember Todd Bodine, who was subbing for Bill Elliott because he broke his femur two weeks earlier at Talladega, crashing hard in an in-car camera replay. 8. Frogger49 posted: 09.10.2006 - 3:30 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) That 5 lap rough driving penalty for Kyle Petty turned into a 7 lap penalty. An additional 2 laps were added on because of Felix Sabates' arguing with the officials. The Benson-Craven wreck was bad enough to tear off the entire right side door off of Craven's #41 and the entire rear clip off of the #30. It was bad enough to warrant a Ned Jarrett visit to Bahari Racing's shop for Inside Nascar to proclaim "This is the remains of Johnny Benson's Pennzoil Pontiac," usually reserved for rollover crashes at the time. 9. Anonymous posted: 03.02.2007 - 3:40 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) This also happened to be first win of Jarrett's Cup career with a margin of over a second. 10. Frogger49 posted: 03.03.2007 - 4:00 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Chad Little never actually took the start of the race due to his Oil Pump problem. The car stalled coming off of pit road and never restarted. 11. myself posted: 05.18.2007 - 1:44 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) By winning this race, Dale Jarrett set up his "I'm in the wall" comment! 12. kenneywallace posted: 06.12.2007 - 11:39 pm Rate this comment: (2) (2) Great job Chad Little! A whopping 200 yards complete out of 600 miles-what a performance he turned in! 13. Anonymous posted: 08.07.2007 - 7:34 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The commentators were very quiet and somber after the Craven/Benson crash. Much like they were when Jeff Fuller crashes at Kentucky. The initial reaction was horrific. You could see Benson slide down onto the apron out of view of the CBS camera that was focused on the accident at the time. Then Buddy Baker and Ken Squier yell "Oh no!" at the same time and you see parts and pieces of Benson's car fly above the infield, which was blocking the view. Squier then said that one car "completely disintegrated". They thought three cars were involved until they saw the replays. It was very scary. 14. FHgrad99 posted: 08.31.2007 - 6:43 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Dale Jarrett's car seemed to handle flawlessly the entire race. It seemed to be glued to the white line on the bottom of the track in the corners all race long. 15. Steve posted: 10.12.2007 - 4:11 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) The day of the infamous U.S. 500-Indianapolis 500 duel. Tony George took the greatest race away from the CART schedule (he was, and still is, the president of the speedway) and centered his new Indy Racing League around it. The U.S. 500 at Michigan was formed by CART to rival the Indy 500, and their big names were there (Unser Jr., Andretti, Tracy, Zanardi, Fittipaldi, Rahal, Gordon, Pruett, etc.), while guys like Robbie Buhl and Richie Hearn joined Stewart, Brayton, Luyendyk, Cheever, Salazar, Guerrero, Sharp, and Lazier (Few other halfway decent racers). Contact between Vasser and Fernandez (causing a melee) at the start of the U.S. 500 sucked the dignity from CART, and while the two series battled for supremacy, NASCAR (now NA$CAR) have taken the lead. Way to go, Tony George! Way to butcher up the best racing series in America just for control! "I'm sure the folks in Charlotte are just loving this. Just loving it." -- Michael Andretti in an interview after he dropped out of the U.S. 500 16. RaceFanX posted: 06.20.2008 - 11:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Final Cup Series start for 1990 Busch Series Champion and former Cup series pole sitter Chuck Bown 17. RaceFanX posted: 10.31.2008 - 2:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Lake Speed ran in the Top-5 and Top-10 throughout the first half of the race before being knocked from contention in a crash 18. JW posted: 04.02.2009 - 9:01 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This race was caution free until the Marcis crash on lap 142. After that, it seemed like they couldn't get a lap in before another wreck. 19. myself posted: 08.17.2009 - 1:26 pm Rate this comment: (0) (3) *"Great job Chad Little! A whopping 200 yards complete out of 600 miles-what a performance he turned in! kenneywallace | Email | 06.12.07 - 11:39 pm"* ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS! 20. jwdog posted: 06.25.2011 - 11:48 am Rate this comment: (0) (1) I think Benson's car spun around in a fireball after he was hit off turn 4 in this race. 21. 10andJoe posted: 03.05.2012 - 5:36 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) This was the point where the Kranefuss-Haas team was doing serious development work on a Lincoln Mark VIII-based race car, deeming the T-bird to have had every ounce of possible speed already wrung out. The "Hot Rod Lincoln" was discussed during the qualifying show; it was a serious proposition but, unfortunatly, it never got approved to run; we got the Taurus instead. (Eew.) 22. RaceFanX posted: 03.24.2012 - 1:43 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsors: #94 Todd Bodine- McDonald's Monopoly (also run in the next two races at Dover and Pocono) #11 Brett Bodine- Lowe's 50th Anniversary (also used in the 1996 Winston Open, car was all gold) Morgan Shepherd ran a camouflage paint scheme on the Remington Arms Ford in this race. Mark Gibson and Robbie Faggart, who qualified so well for the Winston Open the previous week, both crashed in practice and DNQed because of it. Elton Sawyer and Brett Bodine both crashed hard in qualifying but still made the race with provisionals. 23. Anonymous posted: 05.29.2013 - 2:09 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Supposedly, the reason Kyle Petty was penalized 5 laps was, while NASCAR was sorting the field out for the restart, they said that Ted Musgrave was to start in front of Kyle Petty. The team was mad, thought that Petty should have started in front of Musgrave, and that Petty, over the radio, said that he would "take care of the situation". With the wreck that happened afterwords, NASCAR took the comment as wrecking him, but Petty contended that he was going to pass him on the start. 24. Ryan W posted: 07.31.2013 - 2:57 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) DJ barely made it on gas. He did the "Carl Edwards" at the end of the race. 25. sk posted: 11.25.2013 - 1:47 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Four of the seven DNQ's did not take time in either session - Gibson and Faggart who wiped out in practice, as well as Cowart and Seligman. Qualifying was halted when Brett Bodine blew up and crashed near the very end of the session, with only Cowart, Seligman and Joe Nemechek left to run, and that night's ARCA race looming. Curious to know if the two drivers notoriously off the pace were advised to pack it in. 26. HD11 posted: 01.22.2017 - 6:55 pm Rate this comment: (2) (0) I've never seen where Musgrave admitted any such blame for the big crash. In his tv interview, he said that the wreck should be on World's Biggest Bloopers and that it was a dumb move by Kyle. The info regarding the additional two lap penalty on Kyle is correct, it's too bad they didn't have Race Hub's Radioactive feature back then, lmao. 27. JSPorts posted: 01.22.2017 - 7:06 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This race was decided by almost 12 seconds, something that will without a doubt not happen next year. With the new format changes, we will probably see more cautions and more manufactured "drama." 28. Mile501 posted: 01.22.2017 - 7:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Last year, we did have the surprising fall Dover race, which, similar to this one, went the last half caution-free, and Truex won by over 7 seconds. 29. Lars posted: 05.28.2018 - 3:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I was there. Skies opened up just as they were getting the pre-race stuff off the track. I was sitting in Turn 1, and that wreck happened right in front of me. That was back when lapped cars got to restart on the inside row. Didn't think Kyle deserved that penalty. After Marcis wrecked, the track reporter interviewed him from the infield, and when asked what happened, he said something to the effect of, "That bas+@rd John Andretti wrecked me!" Nobody could touch Jarrett. Gordon was the last car on the lead lap in 4th, and Jarrett ran up on him pretty easily with around 5 to go. Either Jarrett was conserving fuel, or his team struck a deal with Gordon's to let Jeff finish on the lead lap, because Jarrett seemed to slow down and maintain the same distance behind Gordon until the checkers. Jarrett had about half a lap on Earnhardt at the time, so there wasn't any urgency to put a lap on anybody at that point. 30. Jericohol14 posted: 05.28.2018 - 5:31 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) I'm sure the folks who complained about last night's race were just SCREAMING at NASCAR in 1996 to "fix these cars" after this "snoozefest", right? 31. JSPorts posted: 05.28.2018 - 5:36 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) There were 20 lead changes in this race and 3 drivers led over 50 laps. The racing last night was good except for the lack of battles for the lead whatsoever. 32. RaceFanX posted: 12.06.2018 - 10:45 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) @30 Given everything else going on in motorsports on this very day the general consensus was "Boy, NASCAR sure is doing things right" compared to the Split and the chaos at Indy and MIS. Combine that with how lockout prone stick-and-ball sports were in the 1990s and NASCAR was seen as the downright wholesome alternative that was fast gaining on the big boys and it was easy to see why. The MLB infamously lost the 1994 World Series to a strike and its popularity kept sinking until the now infamous "Home Run Record Race" in 1998; the NHL lost half of its 1995 season, the NFL's "replacement players" 1987 season wasn't that distant a memory, and while the NBA had Michael Jordan and was looming large once he retired they got burned by a lockout in late 1998. NASCAR even ran commercials at the time that quipped in a country-style voice that "when our competitors want more money, well, they just go out and race for it." NASCAR's popularity was surging in the 1990s and they were more than willing to capitalize on the others woes, climbing past CART to become King of the Mountain because of the Split (something many predicted would happen right from the word "Go!" when the IRL was announced. Road racing's struggles after the death of IMSA GTP (IMSA itself was headed for the ALMS-Grand Am split) only complied NASCAR's success. Richard Petty told a reporter in the lead-up to the Memorial Day 1996 showdown he wouldn't be surprised to see the split wipe out open wheel to the point of folding and NASCAR taking over the Indianapolis 500 itself. 33. RaceFanX posted: 12.06.2018 - 10:50 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) One has to feel bad for Chad Little in this one. Little was a full-time Busch Grand National series racer at the time with he and his Greg Pollex and Mark Rypien-owned team moving up to run a handful of 1996 Cup races in preparation to go full-time in 1997. For a part-time Cup effort it was outright amazing they qualified right at the front here, especially when coming off a DNQ at Talladega, only to have the #97 Sterling Cowboy Pontiac conk out before it even left pit road for the pace laps. 34. possum posted: 12.06.2018 - 6:50 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) @32 - exactly. That is why we have the Brickyard 400 - Tony George wanted to get a NASCAR connection with IMS, so that if the IRL totally failed, the 500 could become a NASCAR race (fortunately for all of us, that didn't happen). Of course, NASCAR's leadership had and has no clue that their success was more due to the failing of others than it was to them, and started busily trying to fix something that wasn't broken...and have probably broken it irretrievably in the process. 35. RaceFanX posted: 12.09.2018 - 9:17 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The Robert Yates Racing team put a new engine in Ernie Irvan's #28 Ford right before this race. The change paid off as the Texaco / Havoline special had a solid run en route to a top-10 finish. 36. RaceFanX posted: 12.09.2018 - 9:24 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Defending race winner Bobby Labonte, filling that role for the first time in his Cup career, and the Joe Gibbs Racing Team had a great run going in this one, running in the top-5 early and leading some laps. Ironically those the #18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet's hopes of a good finish would be done in a battery issue as their car battery stopped charging in the race's later stages, forcing an extended pit stop for a battery change. While that could have been due to a fault in either the battery or its charging system it's still an awkward way to lose a good run. 37. Yahboi posted: 11.28.2019 - 1:50 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) 1996 Was The First Multi-Win Season For Dale Jarrett. Amazing. He was 39.5 years old when he reached his 2nd win of 96, and would go onto win 2 more races that year, which started his prime years of 1996-2001, wherein he would win 3/4 of his career total 32 wins. Just goes to show how amazing he was in that era with Robert Yates. NEVER GIVE UP! 38. Mile501 posted: 11.28.2019 - 6:23 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) @37 - Jarrett's career reminds me of Truex's in some ways. Truex was a few years younger than Jarrett when he started to win a lot, but both drivers waited until the latter part of their careers before they won a lot of races and a championship. 39. SweetRich posted: 02.15.2020 - 12:12 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The Commentators For The Race Were Ken Squier, Buddy Baker And Dick Berggren. The Pit Road Reporters Were Steve Byrnes, Randy Pemberton And Patty Moise. Anchoring The STP Communication Center Was Rick Benjamin. 40. Jimmie4life posted: 10.15.2020 - 10:35 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I for one see the penalty for Kyle Petty's aggressive driving as both fair and unfair at the same time. The penalty is fair in turn for the end result: While Petty's crew argued Dale Earnhardt did a similar incident at Rockingham that didn't result in a penalty, the bump by Earnhardt didn't cause a crash, and only slid a car up the track. While in Kyle's instance, he spun a car out and took out 10 drivers just trying to make a move. On the otherhand, the 7 lap penalty was extremely harsh. Yes, crashing someone is wrong, especially in a kamikaze move 150 laps into a 400 lap race, but getting 5 laps +2 more from Sabates trying to make a claim about other rough driving not warranting a penalty is putting water on a burning wound: It'll only make it worse. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: