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May 5
2002: Driving a Pontiac, Tony Stewart wins the rain-delayed Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond. It is the last of four times a Pontiac wins the Pontiac-sponsored race. Pontiac also won with Stewart the previous year, in 1989 with Rusty Wallace and in the inaugural year, 1988, with Neil Bonnett.

1982~DW leads 419 of 420 laps to win the Cracker Barrel Country Store 420 at Nashville (Tenn.) Speedway. Harry Gant, who finishes 29th in the 30-car field, leads the only other lap on the .596-mile track. Gant leads Lap 116 -- just before he retires with steering problems after 119 laps.

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May 6
1984: The Winston 500 at Talladega features 75 lead changes—a record for the Cup series that still stands. The 75th lead change came on the last lap, with Cale Yarborough taking the checkered flag by two car lengths over Harry Gant.

1973: Sixty cars -- yes, 60 -- start the Winston 500 at Talladega. Perhaps it's a good thing 60 cars start because only 17 finish. Twenty-one cars fail to finish because of crashes, and one car runs out of tires (Alton Jones). David Pearson wins the race by more than a lap over Donnie Allison. Finishing last is Richard D. Brown, who bows out after one lap with a windshield problem.

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May 7
1995: Dale Earnhardt wins the Save Mart Supermarkets 300 in Sonoma, Calif., for the only road-course win of his Cup career. Mark Martin dominated, leading 66 of 74 laps, but finishes second by .32 seconds. Earnhardt leads only the final two laps.

1989 -- Davey Allison takes the No. 28 to Victory Lane in the Winston 500 at 'Dega to give Yates Racing its first victory.

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May 10
2008: Michael Waltrip becomes the 14th driver to start 700 Cup races when he takes the green flag in the Dodge Avenger 500 at Darlington. Waltrip finishes 24th. No driver has reached 700 starts

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May 11
2002: Bobby Hamilton Jr. wins a Nationwide Series race for his first NASCAR victory. Hamilton beats Todd Bodine by 2.547 seconds in the Busch 200 at New Hampshire. Jack Sprague is third.

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May 12
2001: J.D. Gibbs, president of Joe Gibbs Racing, finishes 23rd in the Darlington 200 truck series race for his best career finish in eight starts from 2000 to 2002. Gibbs also started five Nationwide races (1998-99).

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May 13
1967: Richard Petty wins the Rebel 400 for his 55th Cup victory, passing his father, Lee, as the winningest driver in the Cup series. Richard retires in 1992 with 200 wins. Lee’s 54 wins are ninth all time.

1958: Junior Johnson wins the Wilkes County 160 at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway for his first victory on a paved track. It is his sixth of 50 NASCAR victories. Twenty-three of those wins come at dirt tracks.

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May 14
2004: Less than two weeks past his 19th birthday, Kyle Busch wins the Funai 250 Nationwide Series race at Richmond for his first NASCAR victory. Busch leads 236 of the 250 laps and beats Greg Biffle to the line by .15 seconds. Kevin Harvick is third.

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May 15
1970: Bobby Isaac wins the Beltsville 300 on half-mile Beltsville (Md.) Speedway for his first of 11 victories in 1970 en route to his only Cup championship. The win comes in the 14th race of the 48-race season. Richard Petty wins a season-high 18 races but finishes third in the standings behind three-time winner Bobby Allison.

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May 16
1971: Brothers Donnie and Bobby Allison, charter members of the “Alabama Gang,” finish 1-2 in the Winston 500. It is Allison’s sixth victory and the fourth and final time Bobby finishes second. Donnie finishes his career with 10 Cup wins.

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May 17
1981: D.K. Ulrich finishes fourth in the Mason-Dixon 500 at Dover for the only top-five finish in his 273-race Cup career. In another “only” in the race, Jody Ridley gets his only Cup victory in 140 starts.

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May 22
1955: Tim Flock wins the Richmond 200, finishing ahead of brother Fonty and Lee Petty, but that’s not what makes the results of this 200-lap race on a half-mile dirt track interesting. Finishing last in the field of 28 cars is Jimmie Lewallen, who drops out after three laps. The reason given for his DNF: mud.

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May 23
1954: Lee Petty wins the only Cup race run at Sharon Speedway, a half-mile dirt track north of Youngstown, Ohio. The scheduled 200-lap race is shortened by 40 laps because of rain. Buck Baker is second and Dick Rathmann third.

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May 24
1970: Donnie Allison wins the World 600 at Charlotte for his fourth career victory and first without brother Bobby finishing second. Cale Yarborough finishes second, two laps back. Bobby completes 17 laps before his engine fails, and he finishes 39th in the 40-car field.

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May 26
1996: Dale Jarrett wins his only Coca-Cola 600, beating Dale Earnhardt by a whopping 11.982 seconds. The only other cars on the lead lap are Terry Labonte and Jeff Gordon.

May 25
1986: Richard Petty makes his last start in a car other than the No. 43, when he buys D.K. Ulrich’s ride—the No. 6 Chevrolet—and finishes 38th in the 1986 Coca-Cola 600. Petty crashed during a practice session and wasn’t permitted by NASCAR to go to a backup car.