Network graphics seemed better then across the board back then, regardless of what network you were watching. ABC used this particular graphic font from the fall of 1988 (they debuted it for their football and ALCS and NLCS coverage that year) through 1992. The networks now use much smaller graphics that, quite frankly, are often hard to read.

The rest they say is history.

Out of the 10 NASCAR races Mark Stahl turned up for in 1991, he only qualified for 2 of them. He actually failed to qualify for the first 5 races of the season. So its not really hard to understand why Hooters would decide to drop him and go with Kulwicki who had already won two Winston Cup races in his career. Out of the 63 NASCAR races he attempted to qualify for between 1981 and 1993, Stahl failed to qualify 33 times and had a best finish of 16th in the 1986 TranSouth 500 at Darlington. His last two starts came later in the second half of 1991 when he managed to qualify for both the Southern 500 at Darlington and the AC Delco 500 at Rockingham.

BTW, I just want to add that I wasn't trying to knock Mark Stahl for giving it a go. He was obviously doing something he loved and I won't knock him for that even if he did prove unsuccessful at trying to race in the Winston Cup. Not everyone is going to be as good as an Earnhardt or Petty or Johnson, nor will they have access to the money for the best equipment and personnel. Nor will they be lucky such as someone like Danica Patrick who got by more on her gender and marketability than because she was any good in a stock car.

Page and Unser were good announcers with ChampCar, but neither really had and stock car experience except calling this race for a few years. I don't think Unser even ran any USAC stock car races during his driving career.

so every announcer of every sport now days?

Paul had covered NASCAR before he was at ESPN & ABC. He called the races NBC covered from 1979-1985.

They did significantly better than Rusty and Dale Jr. calling IndyCar races.

Hooters JUST got on the car that race, Mark Stahl failed to qualify so they asked to get on Kulwicki's car for this race, he accepted and long-term partnership was reached after this race.

Hooters also jumped on the hood of Jim Sauter's #89 Evinrude Pontiac for the Mueller Bros for this race after Stahl DNQ'ed. It was actually Sauter who introduced Bob Brooks from Hooters to Kulwicki during this weekend. They previously sponsored Sauter in Delma Cowart's Master's Inn #0 Ford in the final 1990 race at Atlanta after Stahl again failed to qualify.

@@evanwilliams6406 I lost any respect I had for Hooters and the way they jumped ship immediately after Alan got killed.

​@@timbliss9892 as I understand, the Hooters guys on the plane were the only ones that had a relationship with Kulwicki, and I believe Hooters in general were looking to stop sponsoring him in in 1993, or at the end i I think they didn't sign on to sponsor for 1993 until sometime in the off season. With the guys that had Kulwicki's back having been on the plane and killed along with Alan, Hooters pulled the plug on the sponsorship. With their guy gone, there was no desire to keep sponsoring.

JesusHippie Pretty sure this was also used for introducing the starters for the Indy 500 in the early 90's for a few years.

Just to add onto what you're saying, the current day pit road is what used to be the back stretch. And you're right, the current asphalt is what was laid down in 1997 when the track was reconfigured. Crazy to think about it.

As far as Cup goes, that is 100% correct. Technically, I know for *sure* that the 1991 Busch series race at Oxford Plains Speedway (True Value 250) was not televised at all, and there may be others from that year, too.

SMIFF TV My bad. I should’ve specified Cup race. I believe there are quite a few BGN races from this time period that weren’t televised in any way.

There were the highlights shown on Inside Winston Cup Racing the following week, from their cameras.

Is that episode online?

I have no idea. I remember watching it when it originally aired.

What you see here is literally the only footage of this race known to exist. After the red flag for rain, ABC packed up and went home and never covered the remainder of the race

I was referring to more the cuts in the tape near the end. Were they just edited out or missing?

Ahhh, I gotcha. It's from whoever recorded this all those years ago. They stopped recording 1:10:22, then started recording the 1990 replay shown during the red flag for rain, and then at the end it's some random stuff and then the final announcement that the race was postponed. I'll eventually get around to cutting out the random stuff and replay from 1990 to make it less confusing lol

Probably the same reason why they didn't televise the 1985 CART Michigan 500 after that race was delayed a week due to problems with then-new Radial Tires; they had prior programming commitments that they could not break away from.

Right. Neither ESPN or TNN, which carried the Motorcraft 500 in 1993 after that race was delayed a week by the superstorm of '93, wanted to change their programming commitments, so the rest of this race never aired. That's also the reason why Jeff Gordon's first stock car victory, the inaugural Busch Series race at Atlanta in 1992, was also never televised. In that case, ABC wanted the option of airing that race as rain fill, in the event that it did rain, but because the '92 Motorcraft 500 was run on schedule, the 1992 Busch Series race at Atlanta was never aired on TV. NASCAR would move the Busch Series race to the end of the season to avoid such conflicts, and to allow ESPN, which always did the season finale, to do the Busch Series race.

Back then the tv contracts were entirely different, and at the time ESPN and ABC still operated as separate entities. Could an 11th hour deal have been brokered to air the race? Probably, but the cost was likely so high that NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports declined.

What ABC could have done was to air it on Wide World of Sports, as they had done in prior decades. Maybe not the next Saturday, since what they had already decided on specific programming for that day, but maybe the Saturday after that so the fans could have seen the action. Maybe dedicate an entire show to the race, and possibly even extend the program from 90 minutes to two hours and move the PBA Tour event ahead 30 minutes to compensate for the extra half hour of Wide World.

I was referring to this race, not the '92 Busch Series race at Atlanta. They could have aired this race on Wide World of Sports, not on the Saturday after this race was completed, because they already had their line-up for that day's edition set, but rather on the Saturday after that. They could have aired it then and dedicated the entire show to the re-airing of that race, possibly extending it from 90 minutes to 2 hours. Keep in mind that only the eastern half of the nation was getting ABC's sports programming live anyway, except for special events like Monday Night Football, the U.S. Open golf championship, and the Indianapolis 500. The west coast was already seeing it on a 3-hour delay. And as for the '92 Busch Series race at Atlanta, that's something they could have aired on same-day tape delay on Wide World of Sports, since it took place on a Saturday, and dedicated the entire show to it. They simply could have aired it in their normal 90-minute Wide World of Sports window without altering any other programming to fit it in. The reason they didn't do that was because they wanted to have it available for rain fill programming, in case it rained, but because it didn't rain, that race never aired.

This race continued the next day, but it wasn't televised

Nope. ABC packed up and went home.

Nope, this is the 1991 race. Schrader won it, but we don't get to see it because ABC didn't come back to cover the rest of the race after the 24 hour rain interruption

@@SMIFFTV Their is a Re Broadcast of the same race after the rain stopped on Monday.