Why First NASCAR All-Star Race in 1985 May Have Been the Most Controversial

• NASCAR jumped into the All-Star even party in 1985 when series sponsor R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. found yet another way to expand its enormous presence in NASCAR.

• It was would be open to only the 12 full-time drivers with victories in the previous season’s Winston Cup races.

• Many people involved with NASCAR at the time still feel the winning engine in that first All-Star Race was illegal, that winner Darrell Waltrip made it blow up to escape post-race tech inspection.

NASCAR arrived late at the all-star party, finally showing up 52 years after Major League Baseball's debut showcase of the sport's best of the best in 1933.

The sanctioning body’s hesitation to promote such an event was based on its belief that every regular-season race was an all-star race. Management correctly felt that everybody who was anybody in stock car racing was already out there every weekend. Why create another exhibition among the same drivers in the same cars?

That logic held firm from the first Cup Series race in 1949 to 1985, when series sponsor R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. found yet another way to expand its enormous presence in NASCAR. With untold millions of dollars available that once had gone into radio/TV advertising, its Sports Marketing Enterprises team spent extravagantly to upgrade racing facilities.

RJR’s money boosted race-day purses and season-ending point funds, created special-incentive events, and sponsored a select number of teams. With marketing and promotion cash flowing like water, the SME team developed plans for the sport’s first all-star race.

Prior to the 1985 season, RJR officials announced that The Winston would be run in late May of that year at Charlotte Motor Speedway. It was would be open to only the 12 full-time drivers with victories in the previ

Harry Gant

ous season’s Winston Cup races. (It didn’t take NASCAR and RJR long to realize that fans wanted more drivers on the grid; in truth, it has reached the point today where almost everyone who’s ever raced in Cup can become eligible for an all-star berth).