On Father’s Day 1994, Rusty Wallace had to overcome a lot to win the Michigan 400.
With temperatures soaring into the mid-90s and a tricky surface in turn 3 and 4 to deal with, Wallace was the class of the field.
But in a race marred by caution flags, the final yellow gave Wallace one last challenge to navigate through.
With Wallace leading by four seconds, and green flag pit stops looming, Bobby Hillin, Jr. spun with 24 laps remaining. Wallace was forced to stay out one lap longer than he wanted under caution before the field pitted. His car rolled down pit road, silent, out of gas.
As his pit crew went to work, Wallace desperately tried to refire the engine as crew chief Buddy Parrott sprayed ether into the engine. Parrott and the crew pushed the No. 2 Miller Genuine Draft Ford down pit road and as the engine finally came to life, Parrott tumbled down pit road.
“I hurt my leg a little bit, but I’ll be alright,” Parrott said, trying to catch his breath. “We just ran her a little tight on gas. What happens is, this whole place is kind of a turn and we fed the fuel to the inside of the car. We were coming in that lap and we would’ve been okay, but then the caution came out.”
After dominating the majority of the race, Wallace was forced to restart 11th.
With just 19 laps remaining, Wallace started behind 21 other cars including the lapped cars inside of the leaders.
As the green flag waved, Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt battled for the lead and Wallace mounted his charge.
Wallace knifed through the pack, picking up position after position, including a 3-wide pass on the outside that took him from 7th to 3rd in one lap. And after passing Ricky Rudd for 2nd with nine laps to go, he set his sights on Earnhardt.
Coming to three to go, Wallace got a run on Earnhardt and passed him going into turn 3 and proceeded to pull away for his 36th career Winston Cup victory and third in a row.
It was the second time in consecutive weeks that Wallace outdueled Earnhardt. After dominating a week earlier at Pocono, Wallace found himself behind The Intimidator after a late-race caution sent the field to pit road. Earnhardt took two tires to Wallace’s four and the two restarted 1-2 with one lap to go. The green flag flew and Wallace drove under Earnhardt into turn 1 and on to victory.
Wallace led 83 of 200 laps at Michigan, but his performance was overshadowed by the condition of the track. A new patch of asphalt in turns 3 and 4 was unable to set properly because of the heat and was coming apart throughout the race.
The surface caused problems for no less than eight drivers including spins from Robby Gordon, Tim Steele and point leader Ernie Irvan.
One driver said that the patch was like driving off asphalt onto a gravel road. The patch, coupled with the heat made conditions troublesome for drivers all day.
Second-year driver Jeff Gordon led 62 laps during the middle part of the race after a timely caution fell, leaving him in the lead and a lot of cars a lap down. However, an oil leak relegated him to 12th place at race’s end.
Two weeks later, Wallace’s drive for four wins in a row would fall short in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona as he would finish 26th, a lap down.
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