Mike Hembree: Artist still capturing great moments from Sprint All-Star Race
Kasey Kahne and his Gillett Evernham Motorsports team celebrate their win in the 2008 Sprint All-Star Race at Lowe's Motor Speedway. // Dale Barbee, NASCAR Scene
COMMENTARY
For more than 20 years, artist Garry Hill has been “saving” NASCAR’s Sprint All-Star races on canvas. He is currently putting the final touches on the “official” art documenting Kasey Kahne’s win in last year’s race.
Next month’s all-star event will be the 25th in the series, marking a milestone in a race that has seen many changes and more than a few remarkable moments over the years. Hill, who lives in Mooresville, N.C., and has a long history in auto racing, has had the difficult – but entertaining – assignment of capturing the heart of the race for posterity since the third event in 1987.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Hill, whose paintings and prints are in demand by collectors, tabs that ’87 race as the best in the series. It featured the inappropriately named “pass in the grass,” with Dale Earnhardt holding off a determined Bill Elliott despite being forced onto the grass bordering the Lowe’s Motor Speedway frontstretch. Actually, there was no pass, but Earnhardt’s save of a grassy slide that should have sent his car spiraling is justifiably remembered as one of the sport’s grand moments.
“That race did a couple of things,” Hill said. “It established the all-star race as one of the tickets that fans had to have, and it established Dale Earnhardt as the Intimidator. He had had success previously with [team owners] Rod Osterlund and Bud Moore, but there was no reason for him to win that race. Elliott had the car and had the talent to win, but once Earnhardt rattled his cage and Elliott wound up trying to play Earnhardt’s game, it was all over.
“That finish was like the Roman colosseum. You could hear the crowd above the cars. I really believe Bill Elliott tried to take Dale Earnhardt out, and you’re not going to beat Dale Earnhardt at Dale Earnhardt’s game. So that became the cornerstone of two big pieces of the sport: It established the all-star race and Earnhardt.”
But how did it become the “pass in the grass”?
“The fans named it that, and it was catchy,” Hill said. “Everybody who was there said it was the pass in the grass. Earnhardt used to give me hell about that. He said there was no pass. I said, ‘I know, Dale, but that’s what it is to the fans.’”
Hill said the dramatic circumstances of Earnhardt’s win in ’87 set the template for expectations for the all-star race. Although many fans remember Davey Allison’s bone-jarring win over Kyle Petty in the crash-happy finish of the 1992 race as the event’s most memorable, it doesn’t eclipse ’87 for Hill.
“That finish was outstanding, but if there had not been the ’87 race it would never have gotten to ’92,” he said. “1987 made the all-star race the event that everybody wanted it to become.”
With points and championships not at issue, the all-star race has been promoted as the ultimate fan event, a no-holds-barred chase for cash and glory. Often, it was been that. Occasionally, it has been a snoozer.
Kahne gave last year’s race an unusual touch by literally making it about the fans. A non-qualifier, he got into the event because fans voted him in, and then he went on to win in upset fashion.
“For Kasey to come from not knowing in the qualifying race if he was going to get in and then going on to kick everybody’s butt in the race, it makes him a very important part of the history of the all-star race,” Hill said.
“This is a race for the fans. It just goes to show you what can happen when you get a second chance.”
Kahne’s win will be preserved in Hill’s all-star inventory in a painting showing his pass of Denny Hamlin in the fourth turn on the way to the victory.
Hill’s next all-star moment arrives next month - this year’s Sprint All-Star Challenge is scheduled for May 16 at LMS. One of the fun things about it is that, at the moment, all of us can only guess at the subject matter.
