|| *Comments on the 1997 DieHard 500:* View the most recent comment <#64> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. MegaRacer posted: 10.03.2005 - 7:38 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jeff Gordons (LR?) tire blew as the pack headed down the backstretch and caused the Big One. If I remember correctly, eventual winner Terry Labonte barely squeaked thru unscathed. 2. Darrell posted: 03.12.2006 - 2:39 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Did Ward Burton DNQ for that race? 3. CanucksAndNASCAR Fan posted: 06.05.2006 - 3:40 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I believe so...I think it was the only race he missed in 1997. 4. Steve posted: 11.27.2006 - 10:36 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) even though it only came down to 4 cars it was still pretty exciting i was really pulling for kenny schrader there, one of his best chances to win a race since that last win at dover in 91. if jarrett could have gone a bit lower in the grass and missed jeff gordons spinning car during the big one Jarrett would have been Champion in 1997 5. Steve posted: 11.27.2006 - 10:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Terry didnt squeak through he was leading at the time, irvan just barley got through 6. most posted: 12.17.2006 - 10:01 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) See my comment on the Watkins Glen race about Jarrett, that black flag for tire smoke also cost him the title. 7. myself posted: 02.19.2007 - 6:25 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Cale's car was one of the dominant ones in 3 of 4 plate races that year (winning one)....NICE! If he could've continued to have sponsorship, he could've stayed in racing....& probably won more. Thorn Apple Valley & Woody Wookpecker weren't much of sponsors in 98' & 99'. 8. Cecil Davis posted: 02.24.2007 - 12:48 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Great run for Rick Mast(9th),Morgan Shepherd(12th), And David Green(16th). NICE. 9. biffle16 posted: 03.17.2007 - 3:58 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Irvan's last top-5 finish. :( 10. Anonymous posted: 09.15.2007 - 5:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Yes, Ward Burton failed to qualify for this race, and so did Hut Stricklin. 11. most posted: 10.24.2007 - 3:50 am Rate this comment: (0) (2) btw, Andretti got a blamed for Gordon's flat tire spin, the CBS crew was very pro Gordon (even Ned was) so he got the shaft! 12. Mark O. posted: 01.02.2008 - 11:50 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) DNQ List: Ed Berrier, Gary Bradberry, Ward Burton, Jeff Green, Hut Stricklin 13. adamal82 posted: 01.23.2008 - 2:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) last race until 2001 Loudon that less than 43 cars were in the race 14. RaceFanX posted: 02.14.2008 - 8:31 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Darrel Waltrip ran his retro-DiGard Gatorade paint job in this event after he DNQed with it at Charlotte. This race was used to determine the eligible cars for the first No Bull 5 event in the 1998 Daytona 500 15. myself posted: 02.26.2008 - 12:31 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Anyone have a pic of the retro-Waltrip car referenced above? 16. Breaker posted: 03.10.2008 - 5:12 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Craven was actually blamed at first for the wreck, as he was right behind Gordon at the time. They later showed through in car camera that Craven didn't touch Gordon, and later was revealed he had a flat. 17. RaceFanX posted: 10.05.2008 - 1:44 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) First October Talladega race 18. ChazzyJoe posted: 01.25.2009 - 10:01 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) This was the last 42-car until 2001, and the last scheduled 42-car race in NASCAR history, since the November 2001 Loudon race had 42 because of a folded team, I think. 19. jp posted: 02.18.2009 - 1:05 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) greg sacks and jeremy mayfield almost flipped in the 18-car big one. mayfield climbed on top of the 23 of spencer, while sacks was, as mike joy said,"hooked on marlins hood.if you saw the '97 winston 500 comments, i accidentally put this comment on the page. i saw part of the youtube clip, and joy said sterling MARTIAN at one point. and fyi some of those cars were totally wiped. so tell me, WHY WERE ALL THOSE CARS STILL IN IT!!!!! oh, and the "retro" 17 was in it too. 20. jp posted: 03.28.2009 - 11:21 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Ned said Mayfield went over. Is this True? 21. Steve.M posted: 08.02.2009 - 7:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Ned meant Mayfield went up and over the hood of another car, he didnt flip 22. myself posted: 08.17.2009 - 2:12 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I bet The Squeal was a-squealin'! 23. 18fan posted: 02.19.2010 - 5:39 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The first person that made a notice that Jeff had suffered a cut tire was Jeff himself. 24. Intimidation posted: 07.05.2010 - 2:21 am Rate this comment: (0) (1) There was some controversy over whether Gordon actually had or if he just simply lost it on the straightaway. I wouldn't be surprised either way to be honest. 25. jwdog posted: 06.25.2011 - 10:59 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Maybe Jeff just had air going down in the tire. It doesn't make sense otherwise to fishtail like that on the straightaway. 26. Bob posted: 12.30.2011 - 3:31 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) #47 Sponsor: Cofab Steel/Jayski's 27. jC... posted: 03.11.2012 - 8:06 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Terry Labonte nabs Chevrolet's only win of the season that wasn't won by Jeff Gordon. 28. Ed posted: 09.28.2012 - 12:45 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) The fact that Jeff Gordon is able to run another 14 laps is a huge reason he held on for the championship. 29. Brad24 posted: 03.17.2013 - 2:48 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I could be wrong, but I believe that legendary Hendrick engine builder Randy Dorton served as Terry Labonte's crew chief that day. This was also the final Talladega race on CBS. They always did a great job calling these races. 30. myself posted: 05.28.2013 - 2:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Yes they did, Brad24. Yes they did. 31. Jay posted: 09.28.2013 - 12:39 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) You are correct about Randy Dorton Brad24. This was when Gary Dehart left. 32. Evan posted: 01.01.2014 - 10:45 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Terry's last superspeedway win, there was a lot of restructuring in Terry Labonte's team as Gary DeHart and here the late great Randy Dorton replaced him, DeHart left the team and Labonte would see his season totals dip as well as his qualifying stats but Terry never won a ton of races, he was more consistent than winning a lot of races. 1997 was pretty much Terry's final year as a championship contender, he'd pretty much be a good soild veteran driver for the rest of the 1990's on up in to 2000. 2002-03 Terry had a brief uptick in performance and he won his final race, the Southern 500 on Labor Day 2003 and he finished in the top 10 points to get on stage at in 2003. 33. RaceFanX posted: 01.20.2014 - 10:40 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsor: #28 Ernie Irvan- Texaco / Havoline 10th Anniversary As with the Coke 600 earlier in the season Robert Yates Racing brought out Davey Allison's original white, red, gold, and black "Battlestar" paint job as a throwback paint scheme for this race with Ernie again putting it out front for a good chunk of the race. This was his last pole driving for RYR. I hope Davey would be proud. (thanks to Evan who gave me the heads up to this on the Coke 600 comments). This race taught me a life lesson I never forgot. At the time I was a huge Mark Martin fan and hated Jeff Gordon. Being an elementary schooler I was hoping Gordon would have a bad day and Mark could make up some points...then the Big One happened. Gordon gets involved and then in the resulting melee so is Martin. After that I never wished bad luck on anyone again in anything, it'll get you no closer to your goals. 34. Anonymous posted: 04.02.2014 - 12:41 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I just noticed that this was the third straight Talladega race where the Margin of victory was 0.146 seconds. 35. Jay posted: 08.08.2014 - 9:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) BTW, does anybody know why Gary left the 5 team? 36. WardBurtonfan posted: 09.21.2014 - 7:42 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Greg Sacks another rare great run going but as usual, got in the crash 37. Josh posted: 07.26.2016 - 6:14 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Gordon's left rear tire deflated going down the back to cause the Big One. 38. Anthony posted: 08.30.2016 - 8:42 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) First October race at Talladega and as a result of this, it became a Chase race 7 years later. 39. who posted: 03.15.2017 - 7:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) this was Mike Joy's first race as the lap by lap announcer 40. Self Made Man posted: 03.15.2017 - 9:52 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Nothing against Mike Joy. Why did they boot the legendary Ken Squire for from the play-by-play? 41. Ryan posted: 03.15.2017 - 10:02 pm Rate this comment: (2) (0) Joy had been lead announcer for TNN in the early 90's and for SETN in the 80's so really only his first race on play by play for CBS Winston Cup Coverage. Believe he did some Truck and Busch races in 96 for CBS. By 97 Squier had been getting up their in age and Ken probably wanted to give a fellow New Englander a chance in the premiere booth spot or CBS felt it was time as Squier had been lead since the Mid 70s on Motorsports coverage. 42. Evan posted: 03.15.2017 - 11:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I think Gary DeHart was having communication issues with the 24 side of the shop. Eventually they got Andy Graves to replace Gary DeHart. Not sure where DeHart went after that but he was still in the fold as he eventually brought back as crew chief of the 5 team until Jim Long replaced him. One of the issues that Terry Labonte had in that time was he struggled with the set-ups that Jeff Gordon and his other teammates were running and once Jim Long got there, he started setting cars up the way Terry liked them and it got better and Terry Labonte eventually would pick his last win in 2003 with Jim Long as the crew chief. 43. Bramblegrunt posted: 05.23.2017 - 3:20 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Billy Standridge had a remarkable start to this race. He was the fastest in 2nd round qualifying, surprising everyone. He would race his way up to 9th battling John Andretti and Derrike Cope but his car just lost it on the back and spun out, he would later retire from the event due to damage suffered running over the grass. He said his car was not loose at all and had no idea why it would just spin out. At the time Kenny Wallace had spread some rear end oil grease on the track and that MAY have caused him to wipe out. Cope and Andretti suffered cosmetic damage. The big wreck marginalized quite a bit of the field as Dale Earnhardt, Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon all had more than capable cars to win on this day but were all taken out. This set up an absolutely brilliant closing laps with Schrader leading with 8 laps to go leading a 4 car pack of Terry & Bobby Labonte and Andretti. Schraders crew was so eagerly watching the race hoping he could hold them off but with 2 to go Terry made his move in turn 1, Schrader had 1 opportunity to block but his car washed up just a tiny bit opening Terry to lead and the win. Schrader wouldnt be able to hold off Andretti or Bobby and would fade to 4th. Love Texas Terry but it would have been cool to see Schrader finally put an end to his many-year winless drought, but was an overall very dramatic race start to finish 44. Tide1732 posted: 10.12.2017 - 12:36 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) A 20 Years ago... A Great Brother finish. 45. Corey posted: 10.12.2017 - 12:54 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) @44 I disagree. That would be the 1996 NAPA 500. Bobby wins the race, Terry wins the championship. They do a victory lap together around the track. 46. 42KylePetty42 posted: 10.12.2017 - 3:05 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) 20 years ago today.. John Denver parished in a plane crash (not related to this event) shortly after this race comes to a conclusion 47. Darrell posted: 01.21.2018 - 5:18 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) 4th, and final, lead lap finish for the Buz McCall #96 team. 48. CJ posted: 04.24.2018 - 12:29 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Season best finish for Ken Schrader, Rick Mast, David Green, and Kevin Lepage. Final pole and Top 5 finish for Ernie Irvan in the 28. It would also be the last Top 5 finish of his career. 49. Kentucky Wildcat posted: 04.24.2018 - 7:28 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Last true great ride for Greg Sacks as he would lead the race, ran up front majority of this race. The car was lightning fast, the car could maneuver in the draft anywhere Sacks wanted to put it. Unfortunately what was a sure top 5 finish (his first since 1990), perhaps a chance to pull off the victory ended in the massive pileup.. Sacks would never get a competitive ride like this again :( 50. Schraderfan posted: 09.12.2018 - 12:08 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) Schrader had the race won with about 3 or 4 laps to go. He always had a penchant for running the high line at superspeedway tracks and it did him good for his career because he was always in contention at them. In this race he just had to hold it on the yellow line for the final few laps and he would have won it but he went high and the Labonte brothers went low and the rest is history. 51. 33kalam posted: 12.18.2019 - 9:16 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) This big one pretty much ended Morgan-McClure dominance at super-speedway races. Marlin led 27 laps. 52. Taylor posted: 12.31.2019 - 6:18 pm Rate this comment: (2) (0) Fun fact: 3rd consecutive Talladega race in which the margin of victory was .146 seconds. 53. JSPorts posted: 12.31.2019 - 6:42 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) That's pretty wild, considering all the variables involved. 54. Mile501 posted: 12.31.2019 - 7:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) That is crazy. If we say that the margin of victory at Talladega is always 0.2 seconds or less (which it usually is, so that should provide a close enough approximation to reality), the probability of having an identical margin of victory in 3 consecutive Talladega races is 1 in 4 million! 55. Joshua posted: 02.12.2020 - 11:42 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Piggybacking on 18 ChazzyJoe's post, this was the final scheduled race with fewer than 43 starters until the 2016 Daytona 500, when the field size was reduced from 43 to 40. The Fall 2001 Loudon race had 42 starters, but that was rescheduled under extraordinary circumstances. NASCAR did not allow any additional entries from the original entry deadline, and at least one team had packed up by then. Other than that, NASCAR went nearly 20 years after this date to the 2016 Daytona 500 with a field size of 43 cars. 56. cba2442 posted: 02.12.2020 - 12:17 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) 55. 2014 Kentucky only had 42 entries for 43 spots. It was the only time between 2001 Fall Loudon and the 2016 Daytona 500 to have less than 43 entries. 57. RaceFanX posted: 03.13.2020 - 10:35 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Mark Martin and owner Jack Roush signed over one of their #6 Valvoline Fords to race fan Brian Murphy of Arkansas after he won it in Valvoline's "Big Race Sweepstakes" during the lead up to this race. During the ceremonial handover Murphy joked he should try to sell the car to Dale Earnhardt should he could get a decent run with it given how bad his 1997 season was going. Quips aside, he mostly planned to use his new NASCAR-spec Thunderbird as a car show entry. 58. Jimnsimforever posted: 03.15.2020 - 10:55 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Late in the race Jeff Gordon was black flagged for not being able to get enough speed. Mark Martin, also out just trying to make laps for points and chasing him for the title in 2nd place, was clearly faster than Gordon but took his car behind Jeff's to draft and try to help Gordon get his speed up to stay on the track. 59. Foote posted: 04.21.2020 - 3:40 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Earnhardt did an incredible job minimizing the damage taken from the big one when Jeff Gordon spun down the track. He was on the inside lane and saw it before it was happening and swerved all the way down near the grass and still took damage and spun, but any other driver would have kept driving straight and piled into Gordon and been forgiven for it. 60. Anonymous posted: 05.10.2020 - 7:39 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I don't think Kevin Lepage was apart of his one it looked like Bill Elliott was in it he was trying to get to a stop, turns out lepage was in front of the leader about to get lapped as well as Kyle Petty good news for Kyle not only stayed in lead lap but got a Top 10 he had of some outstanding finishes towards the end of that year but the last time he had that good of a stretch is his career in terms of Top 10's like that. Lepage did get his 1st cup lead lap finish that day and it was little Joe Falk his owner his 2nd that season, got it at Sonoma as well. 61. Evan posted: 06.25.2020 - 9:28 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) This was Ernie Irvan's final top-5 finish, he never finished in the top 5 driving the #36 Skittles/M&M's Pontiac considering Derrike Cope finished 5th in his final race with the team at Atlanta in 1997. 62. Rich posted: 08.04.2020 - 6:53 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The commentators were Mike Joy, Ned Jarrett and Buddy Baker. The pit road reporters were Dr. Dick Berggren, Ralph Sheheen and Bill Stephens. 63. Rich posted: 12.29.2020 - 8:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This event also had the beginning of three new eras for NASCAR on CBS: Mike Joy, after being the lead pit road reporter from 1985 to the June event at Michigan this year, became the new play by play announcer, taking over the spot from Ken Squier, who became the studio host. Dr. Dick Berggren, who began his run at CBS in 1995, became the new lead pit road reporter, replacing Mike Joy. And finally, Bill Stephens began his run with the network as the new pit road reporter. All of these moves would last until July of 2000 when CBS and NASCAR's cup series would part ways after an amazing 21-year run together. 64. Rich posted: 12.30.2020 - 3:57 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The studio host was Ken Squier, which began his run on CBS in that position until 2000 as well as doing the victory lane interview. His run on TBS as the studio host would not start until October 1999 at Charlotte, which would last until the following year. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: