With all the talk this past week about Tony Stewart and the wonderful Truck race at Eldora, I thought back to the first time I ever saw Tony Stewart.
In June 1995, the late Richmond promoter, Paul Sawyer brought the USAC Silver Crown (and Midgets) to his 3/4-mile NASCAR Richmond International Raceway on the Cup Michigan weekend.
This was approximately 50 years after the great Ted Horn had won the first race on the same Richmond site in his Offy powered AAA "Big Car" roadster on the dirt.
ESPN televised the race live as a "Saturday Night Thunder" event.
Dave DeSpain put together a great opening sequence for the broadcast showing the champ cars on the Richmond dirt in 1946 as well as Richard Petty winning on the dirt in 1968, along with Richard on a bulldozer tearing up the old half-mile Richmond track and a few infamous Richmond stock car wrecks.
In the June 1995 field was a very young (and very slim) Tony Stewart , who is interviewed in his car on the starting line by Dave DeSpain during pre-race. This was Stewart's first time on the Richmond oval and it was 4 years before his Winston Cup debut and a year before his Busch Series debut.
Tony always says Richmond is his favorite track. He won 3 of the first 7 Cup races he ran at Richmond and I wonder if he got a leg up there with his open wheel experience.
Also in the field was Mike Bliss , who had just secured a NASCAR SuperTruck ride. You'll see many names open wheel fans will recognize, such as an aged George Snider and a young Brad Noffsinger .
This is just the first clip of 5 from YouTube of the 1995 USAC Silver Crown at Richmond telecast. You can easily find the rest if you want to see the whole show, won by Jack Hewitt.
In the opening sequence, you'll see Tony Stewart fall back for some reason on the start, then start a charge back through the field, captured by his "cage cam" bolted in the open wheel Silver Crown car.
Dave DeSpain had my dear friend and former employer, Paul Sawyer give the command to start engines and you'll note Paul references his old buddy, Darlington announcer Ray Melton when he does.
Enjoy:
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"Any Day is Good for Stock Car Racing"
updated by @dave-fulton: 12/05/16 04:00:58PM
