“Prior to the restrictor-plate era, winning the DAYTONA 500, at least in my mind, still meant more than it does now. You really had to go out and get it. It wasn’t just anybody’s race, you had to have the car, you had to have the handling and you had to have the driver.”
Ken Willis, columnist, Daytona Beach News-Journal
Editor’s note: This is the second in a 40-part series highlighting 40 of the greatest wins in the history of Hendrick Motorsports to finish its 40th anniversary season. A new installment will be released each day from Nov. 22, 2024 through New Year’s Eve. Votes were taken from Hendrick Motorsports employees as well as representatives of the NASCAR Hall of Fame and Racing Insights with all unanimous selections being ushered in automatically. The remaining wins were deliberated and decided upon by a small panel.
CONCORD, N.C. - If Geoff Bodine's first victory at Martinsville Speedway for the organization then known as All-Star Racing in 1984 saved what would become Hendrick Motorsports, his fourth win pushed the company into a new stratosphere.
In the days before the introduction of restrictor plates in 1988, upsets just didn't happen often in the DAYTONA 500.
Consider that the 10 DAYTONA 500s prior to 1986 were won by six drivers: Cale Yarborough (1977, 1983 and 1984), Richard Petty (1979 and 1981), Bobby Allison (1978 and 1982), David Pearson (1976), Buddy Baker (1980) and Bill Elliott (1985). By the time their careers were over, that group had combined for 536 NASCAR Cup Series wins, 18 DAYTONA 500s and 15 championships.
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So, when Bodine put his No. 5 Levi Garrett Chevrolet on the outside of the front row in qualifying and then outlasted Dale Earnhardt on fuel mileage all the way to victory lane, perhaps no moment and no victory served as a louder pronouncement that Hendrick Motorsports was in NASCAR to stay.
That's how Ken Willis, sports columnist at the Daytona Beach News-Journal, saw it as well. Willis, whose covered every DAYTONA 500 since 1983 in addition to writing about auto racing and specifically NASCAR, said wins in The Great American Race in the 1980s and prior, served as a more accurate representation of the teams, drivers and cars to beat throughout the seasons that followed.
| RACE FACTS | |
|---|---|
| Date: | Feb. 16, 1986 |
| Venue: | Daytona International Speedway (DAYTONA 500) |
| Winner: | Geoff Bodine |
| Hendrick Motorsports win: | No. 4 |
| Laps led by winner: | 101 |
| Starting position of winner: | 2nd |
| Top 10: | 1. Geoff Bodine; 2. Terry Labonte; 3. Darrell Waltrip; 4. Bobby Hillin Jr.; 5. Benny Parsons; 6. Ron Bouchard; 7. Rick Wilson; 8. Rusty Wallace; 9. Sterling Marlin; 10. Lake Speed |
| Did you know? | Bodine had less than a gallon of gas in his fuel tank upon postrace inspection. |
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“Prior to the restrictor-plate era, winning the DAYTONA 500, at least in my mind, still meant more than it does now,” Willis said. “You really had to go out and get it. It wasn’t just anybody’s race, you had to have the car, you had to have the handling and you had to have the driver.”
All of those things, along with a winning and decisive strategy, came together for Bodine in that memorable moment in the Florida sun.
Yet, 1986 brought with it change for Hendrick Motorsports. The DAYTONA 500 would serve as the official debut of the organization's second full-time car, the No. 25 driven by Tim Richmond. As part of the shuffling, Gary Nelson was brought in to serve as Bodine's crew chief with Harry Hyde sliding over to sit atop the box for Richmond.
Nelson, who'd served as crew chief for Allison beginning in 1981, had grown a reputation for his ability to stretch fuel mileage. No one could've known, how crucial that expertise would prove to be that Sunday afternoon.
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"On that last pit stop, we'd run a long time and Gary was saying, 'No tires, just fuel' and I said, 'I want tires! Back then we were going fast and the tires weren't as wide and you could hang it out a little bit going through the corners. I said, 'Man, I want tires,' but we got gas and took off."
Geoff Bodine
"Through testing, we knew (the car) was a lot faster than the year before," Bodine recalled in a phone interview last week. "We thought we had a good setup for the race."
Certainly, several formidable challengers lined up on the starting grid on February 16, 1986. Chief among them was Dale Earnhardt, who'd won the Busch Clash, his Daytona Duel race and the Busch Grand National Series (Xfinity Series) race on Saturday during '86 Speedweeks.
Wouldn't you know it, 500 miles of racing boiled down to a showdown between the two.
Bodine, who led 101 of 200 laps in the race, found his way to the front with Earnhardt glued to his back bumper approaching the final pit window. With 41 laps left, Bodine peeled off the race track and with no pit road speed limit enforced at the time, raced toward the care of Nelson and his crew.
"On that last pit stop, we'd run a long time and Gary was saying, 'No tires, just fuel' and I said, 'I want tires!'" Bodine laughed. "Back then we were going fast and the tires weren't as wide and you could hang it out a little bit going through the corners. I said, 'Man, I want tires,' but we got gas and took off."
On the very next lap, Earnhardt, who'd inherited the lead, barreled down pit road, sliding into his box. He took two right side tires but briefly stalled the engine and while Bodine's crew completed service in 16.1 seconds, Earnhardt's team needed 18.7 ticks.
That extra time resulted in a straightaway advantage for Bodine with Earnhardt spending the next stint erasing a four-second gap. However, in the process, he was burning tires and precious fuel.
Earnhardt caught Bodine and chose to tuck in the draft, riding it out as the laps clicked away. But the excess gas used to catch back up was too much to overcome and Earnhardt was forced to pit coming to three laps to go, leaving Bodine only to feather the throttle and pray. Earnhardt's engine gave way as he left pit lane.
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“I slowed up a lot and by slowing up, I was saving tires,” Bodine said. “Dale caught up with me running wide open, so he’d used a lot of fuel and used his tires up a little bit more than I had. I kept waving him to pass me, I knew we were going to both be close.
“We were running nose-to-tail coming off turn four and I saw him pull down and I thought, ‘He’s out of gas!’ And then I thought, ‘Wait, am I going to have enough gas?’"
He did, but barely. Less than a gallon of fuel was found in the tank during postrace inspection.
Yet, when it comes to the emergence of Hendrick Motorsports and its rise to NASCAR prominence, the margin was never big in those early days. But Bodine's crown jewel win signaled bigger and better days were ahead.
"I think that Bodine’s win in '86 sort of foreshadowed what was coming later in the 80s and into the 90s," Willis said.
“When we win a race, we never know where that race is going to take us and who it’s going to take along with us,” Bodine concluded. “What a thrill. To win that race the first time running with Gary Nelson as crew chief.”