by Tom Higgins: That's Racin' Blogger

I was fortunate enough to cover stock car racing off and on--mostly on--from 1957 through 1996.  That's 40 years, or half an expected lifetime.  I can count on 10 fingers the races I remember most and never will forget, this old mind willing.  High on the list is Bobby Hamilton's dramatic triumph in the 1996 Dura Lube 500 on Oct. 27 at Phoenix International Raceway in Arizona.

This race is especially significant to me for two reasons.  First, due to illness, it's the last NASCAR event I ever covered.  I took early retirement shortly afterward.  More importantly, Hamilton's triumph returned Petty Enterprises to Victory Lane after an improbable absence of 13 years.  Memories of Hamilton, and his grand accomplishment, came rushing back to mind because of the popular Tennessee driver's untimely death on Sunday.  Hamilton was a victim of cancer at age 49.

Here's a sampling of how I wrote the story from Phoenix for the Oct. 28, 1996 edition of The Observer:

"It seemed like old times for the Petty Enterprises team on Sunday...Hamilton took the lead on the 283rd of the 312-laps in the 500-kilometer race and returned the storied No. 43 car made famous by Petty to Victory Lane.   "It was the first win for the Petty-owned car since October of 1983 in the Miller 500 at Charlotte Motor Spedway with Petty at the wheel."

Petty won twice in '84, but he was driving a car owned my Hollywood music figure Mike Curb.  It bore the No. 43, but it was not fielded by Petty Enterprises of little Level Cross, N.C.  The second of those triumphs came in that Pepsi Firecracker  400 and that car now sits in a place of honor in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

 So to me, and most others, Bobby Hamilton's triumph REALLY marked the return of the REAL 43 to Victory Lane.  This was not lost on Bobby.

"I can't believe it," he said in the press box after giving the new Grand Prix model its first victory and going through the ceremonies just off pit road.  "Those last laps I thought I felt tires going down.  I heard rattles and even thought the battery was shaking.   "My mind was running wild the last lap.  There were three cars smoking and and I was concerned they would put some oil on the track.

"I'm so happy for Richard and Dale Inman and Robbie Loomis and the other guys on the team.  They've worked so hard and have gone a lot of years without a win.  To be the first to do it in this Pontiac since Richard means a lot to me."  Inman, Petty's cousin, was the team manager.  Loomis was the crew chief.

Hamilton finished 1.23 seconds ahead of runnerup Mark Martin in a Ford.

"The boys did good today," said Petty, who was mobbed on pit road when the checkered flag fell.  "I just sat and watched.  Today, we had it all together.  I thought Bobby had enough to take care of 'em there at the end, but you never know for sure."

 Hamilton had tears in his blazing blue eyes in the press box as the interview ended.  So did a lot of media members who admired the down-to-earth country boy Tennessean whose humbleness and sincerity and honesty affected everyone he met.

Beneath those ever-present dark glasses, I sensed King Richard's eyes were moist, too.

Tbfka#5 commented on Tom's blog. 

Among the subplots to that race was that Robbie Loomis was entertaining an offer to work for RCR; he asked Ray Evernham about it (knowing Evernham would keep the offer out of the press) and Evernham said not to take the job, because "you may be only three years away from a championship with what you've built." Bobby Hamilton likewise reminded Loomis, "We need another year to finish what we started." Loomis agonized over whether to go to RCR, and finally decided to stay.

Hamilton, for his part, felt a mizture of liberation and bitterness because after that Phoenix win "there's this TV person....who asked a good friend of mine, someone he didn't know I knew, when Richard Petty was going to quit putting up with mediocrity. I'm waiting for that SOB, I've got his name burned into my head. You get so much pressure to perform and you hear so much stuff that when you finally do it, the #### everyone puts on you just ruins the first win for you."

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