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Alan Kulwicki, from Greenfield, WI worked his way up from
the short tracks to become the first driver/owner to win the
Winston Cup championship in more than a decade when he
captured the title in 1992. Richard Petty, in 1979, was the
last driver/owner to do so.
(Below is a 1980
picture I took of Alan's USAC car he competed with at the
Milwaukee Mile)
A successful competitor on the American Speed Association
circuit, Kulwicki sold all of his ASA equipment (so he could
not go back), and joined the ranks of Winston Cup competitors
in 1986.
He
won Rookie of the Year honors in '86, and earned the
reputation of a hardworking, no-nonsense competitor. His first
win came in Phoenix in 1988, and it was there he made his
first clockwise post-race lap, dubbed by the media as the
"Polish Victory Lap."
He won again in both 1990 and 1991, but
1992 was his biggest season. Kulwicki’s team won at Bristol
and Pocono, but were 278 points behind with just six races
left in the season. They had two seconds, a fourth and a fifth
in the last six races, and took the title by ten points over
Bill Elliott.
Kulwicki, the reigning Winston Cup champion, died in a plane
crash on his way to a race at Bristol in April of 1993. |
