[BringBackWilkesboro]

April 18th
4/18/99 - John Andretti Pulls off and amazing win in the Goody's Body Pain 500 at Martinsville. Andretti spun on two separate occasions and went a lap down. He made up the lap and stormed to the front, passing Jeff Burton with 4 laps to go and winning his second of two cup races, the last for the original Petty Enterprises. Rookie Tony Stewart started on the pole for the first time in his career, and this was the first race where the 2 pit roads were connected into one long one.

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April 21
1974: Harry Gant finishes ninth in the Gwyn Staley 400 at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway, recording his first top-10 finish in his second Cup start. It will be another eight years, when Gant is 42, before he records his first Cup win.

1968 -- In his 13th start at North Wilkesboro Speedway, David Pearson picks up his first win at the track, by more than a lap.

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April 22
1962: Lee Petty finishes fifth in his first start since his bad crash in the second Daytona 500 qualifying race the previous year. It is Petty’s only start in 1962. He will make five starts more before retiring at age 50: three in 1963 and two in 1964.


1995 -- Ron Hornaday wins at Mesa Marin Speedway and is the first repeat winner in the inaugural Truck Series season.

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April 23
1999: Terry Labonte beats Joe Nemechek to the finish line by .002 seconds to win the Touchstone Energy 300 Nationwide Series race at Talladega. It ties the 1996 Sears Auto Center 250 at Milwaukee as the closest margin of victory in series history.


1999 -- Ken Schrader wins the pole for the DieHard 500 at Talladega. It is his 23rd and final pole in the Cup Series.

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2004: Dale Earnhardt Jr. finishes second to Martin Truex Jr. in the Aaron’s 312 at Talladega Speedway, snapping his five-race winning streak in the Nationwide Series. Competing part time, Earnhardt won at Richmond in 2002; twice at Daytona and once at Talladega in 2003; and the first race of the 2004 season at Daytona. Earnhardt, a two-time Nationwide Series champion, has 22 victories in 109 Nationwide Series starts.

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April 25
1971: Richard Petty wins the Virginia 500 for his fifth straight victory at Martinsville Speedway. Petty finishes his career with 15 wins at Martinsville, which is tied with North Wilkesboro Speedway as Petty’s most successful track.


1976 -- Darrell Waltrip finishes more than a lap ahead of Cale Yarborough for his first of 11 Cup victories at Martinsville.

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April 26
1987: Dale Earnhardt wins the Sovran Bank 500 at Martinsville for his fourth consecutive victory. It is the only time in Earnhardt’s 27 seasons of Cup racing he wins four races in a row. Earnhardt finishes the season with a personal-best 11 wins and his third Cup championship.

1998 -- Bobby Labonte starts from the pole for the only time at Talladega and goes on to pick up his only Talladega win.

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April 27
1991: Jason Keller finishes 29th (of 30 cars) in his first Nationwide Series start. Keller completes 47 laps before crashing in the Nestle 200 at .375-mile Lanier Speedway in Gainesville, Ga. Two rookies finish 1-2. David Green gets his first victory, and a 19-year-old named Jeff Gordon gets his first top five.

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April 28
1991: Dale Earnhardt wins the Hanes 500 at Martinsville for his 50th Cup victory. He leads 251 of 500 laps and beats second-place Kyle Petty by 3.34 seconds. Darrell Waltrip is third and Geoff Bodine is fourth, the last of the four cars on the lead lap.

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April 29
1990: After winning the first seven races of his Cup career driving for Rick Hendrick, Geoff Bodine gets his first of four wins driving for Junior Johnson. Bodine wins the Hanes Activewear 500 at Martinsville, site of his first victory six years earlier, by 4.5 seconds over Rusty Wallace.

1984 -- In the Cup race at M'ville, Geoff Bodine gets his & owner Rick Hendrick's first win. Dale Jarrett is 14th in his first start.

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April 30
1994: Hermie Sadler wins the Pantry Stores 300 Nationwide Series race in the final NASCAR race at Orange County Speedway in Rougemont, N.C. Sadler also won the penultimate race on the .375-mile track in 1993. All told, 27 Nationwide Series races were held at the track, beginning in 1983.

1995 -- Jeff Gordon finishes second at Talladega, but moves to first in points for the first time in his career.

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May 1
1994: Greg Sacks, the surprise winner of the 1985 Pepsi 400 at Daytona, picks up his 20th and final top 10 of his 263-race Cup career with a sixth-place finish in the Winston Select 500 at Talladega. In addition to his win, Sacks finished in the top five two other times.

1983 -- Morgan-McClure debuts in NASCAR, with Connie Saylor finishing 40th at Alabama International Speedway in Talladega.

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May 2
1993: Ernie Irvan holds off Jimmy Spencer to win the Winston 500 at Talladega, but the bigger story is Rusty Wallace’s wreck as Irvan takes the checkered flag. Dale Earnhardt touches Wallace and sends him airborne and flipping wildly down the frontstretch. Wallace actually crosses the start-finish line in the air in sixth place. By the time his car comes to a stop, almost all the sheet metal has been stripped from the car.


1965 -- Junior Johnson picks up his only win at Bristol, leading 240 of 500 laps in beating Dick Hutcherson by one car length.

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May 3
1992: Buddy Baker makes his 700th and final Cup start, finishing 31st in the Winston 500 at Talladega. Baker leaves the race after 176 laps with a broken wheel bearing. Davey Allison gets the win by two car lengths over Bill Elliott.

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May 4
1962: Jimmy Pardue wins a 200-lap race on three-eighths-mile Southside Speedway in Richmond, Va., for his first Cup victory. He leads 66 laps. Jack Smith is second, the only other car on the lead lap, and Richard Petty is third, the only car a lap down. Pardue wins two races in 217 Cup starts.