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The 1992 Hooters 500 was the final race of the 1992 NASCAR season. It was held on November 15, 1992, at Atlanta Motor Speedway and was televised live on ESPN. The race is widely considered one of the greatest NASCAR races of all time,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Greatest NASCAR rivalries )〕 with three noteworthy stories dominating the race: the debut of Jeff Gordon in the Winston Cup Series, the final race of seven time champion Richard Petty's thirty-five-year career, and the battle for the series points championship with six drivers mathematically eligible to win the title. The race was won by Bill Elliott in the #11 Budweiser Ford for Junior Johnson and Associates. By virtue of his second-place finish and leading the most laps, Alan Kulwicki won the series championship for his own #7 Hooters Ford team. ==Pre-race== Coming into the race, six drivers had a mathematical chance to win the title, the most ever. The points standings were led by Davey Allison, driving the #28 Texaco-Havoline Ford for Robert Yates Racing, who had experienced a roller-coaster season. Allison had won the season opening Daytona 500, and four other races. However, his season was nearly halted on more than one occasion, after bad wrecks at The Winston in May and at Pocono in June. In August, he mourned the death of his brother Clifford, who was killed practicing for the Busch Series race at Michigan. Allison rebounded, and won the second to last race of the season at Phoenix. Allison was attempting to become the second second-generation driver to win the Winston Cup Championship - his father Bobby won the title in 1983. At the time, Lee and Richard Petty were the only father-son duo to have won the championship. Bill Elliott, driving for Junior Johnson, experienced a much more consistent season in 1992, winning four races up to that point, and earning 16 top-10 finishes.〔(Bill Elliott career statistics at Racing-Reference.info )〕 Elliott led by as many as 154 points in the season championship on September 20, but he began to falter, and had three bad races in a row, dropping his lead to 39 with three races left. At the second to last race of the season at Phoenix, Elliott's car suffered a cracked cylinder head and overheating problems, which relegated him to a 31st-place finish, and dropped him from first to third in the standings going into the final race. Owner/driver Alan Kulwicki (AK Racing) was considered the third and final primary contender, and the underdog to win the championship. While he had only won two races in 1992 up to that point, he had 11 top-5s and 16 top-10s.〔(Alan Kulwicki career statistics at Racing-Reference.info )〕 He was running at the finish at all but two races so far. Despite a crash at Dover in September, he rebounded to post finishes of 12th or better in the five races leading up to Atlanta. Kulwicki received approval from NASCAR and Ford to change the "Thunderbird" lettering on his bumper by putting two Mighty Mouse patches on the "TH" in "THUNDERBIRD" because he felt like the underdog for winning the championship, and Kulwicki admired the character, which symbolized he and his team (many of whom later became champions themselves long after his death). Davey Allison would mathematically clinch the championship if he finished sixth or better, regardless of the other five drivers' performances.〔 〕 Numerous other championship scenarios generally favored Allison, provided he finished ahead of his competitors, and led a lap during the race. Allison led second-place Alan Kulwicki by 30 points and Bill Elliott by 40. After Kulwicki, three other drivers had an outside chance to win the championship. Harry Gant, driving the #33 Skoal Bandit Oldsmobile for Leo Jackson Motorsports, entered the race 97 points behind Allison, and had won two races during the season. Kyle Petty, driving the #42 Mello Yello Pontiac for Team SABCO, was one point behind Gant, having also won twice. The last driver with a chance was Mark Martin, in the #6 Valvoline Ford for Roush Racing, who was 113 points behind Allison. Attention during the day focused on Gant, Petty, and Martin, but all three basically needed to win the race, and hope for the other championship contenders to drop out. Martin's attempt, in particular, would have been the most difficult to pull off. Of the six championship contenders, the only one that was a former Winston Cup champion was Bill Elliott (1988). The four other active former champions in the race (Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, and Rusty Wallace) were not in contention for the title. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「1992 Hooters 500」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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