Petty, Busch among NASCAR's 10 greatest comebacks

FORT WORTH, Texas -- As NASCAR's Chase for the Championship enters its final stretch with two races remaining, it is shaping up to be one of the better finishes since the Chase's debut in 2004. That year, five drivers were in contention for the title in the final race of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway, with Kurt Busch prevailing.

While that was the best of the Chase era, it was not the best stretch drive in NASCAR Cup history. That honor goes to the dramatic 1992 championship, when Alan Kulwicki defied the odds and won the title at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Since then, however, impressive stretch drives and dramatic comebacks have been rare. That is why this year's Chase shouldn't be taken for granted.

Let's take a look at some of the great comebacks and stretch drives in NASCAR history.

**While there have been many great points races from the past, these are chosen from the Modern Era, which began in 1972, and the Chase Era, which began in 2004.

No. 1 -- 1992 -- Alan Kulwicki

Alan Kulwicki was an independent owner/driver who had come south from Milwaukee after a successful career in the American Speed Association. A sizeable 278 points behind with six races remaining, Kulwicki declared he was "out of it" after the September race at Dover.

Despite that proclamation, Kulwicki began an impressive comeback, making up an average of 42 points a race to defeat Bill Elliott in the closest finish in NASCAR Cup history. The late Davey Allison was also a contender for the title heading into the final race of the season, aided by a collapse from Elliott, who finished 26th or worse in four of the final five races. That put Allison in the lead by 30 over Kulwicki entering the final race, but after Allison crashed with Ernie Irvan late in the finale, that opened the door for Elliott and Kulwicki.

Elliott won the race and Kulwicki finished second, but by leading one more lap than Elliott, he claimed five bonus points. Had Elliott led the most laps, the championship would have ended in a tie with Elliott claiming the crown with most wins. Instead, Kulwicki won the title by 10 points.

"I remember that I was glued to the TV," recalled 2004 Cup champion Kurt Busch. "It was a Ford year that year, watching Davey Allison, Alan Kulwicki and Bill Elliott going to Atlanta to duke it out. The way that those three had a shot at the championship is, in a sense, what our Chase format is. If '92 is considered the best year ever and here we are in the Chase era, why can't the Chase be accepted? That's what I'm still trying to figure out. We want to have as many guys eligible for the championship going to that last race at Homestead."

This is easily the No. 1 comeback and dramatic finish to any NASCAR season, a true David and Goliath story.

"To me, that was great that he did that -- we were all pulling for Alan to do that," said former driver and 1989 Cup champion Rusty Wallace.

Sadly, Kulwicki's time as a champion was short. He would die in a private plane crash in Blountville, Tenn., on April 1, 1993, en route to Bristol Motor Speedway.

No. 2 -- 1985 -- Darrell Waltrip

This was the season Elliott became "Million Dollar Bill" by winning three of the sport's Big Four races -- the Daytona 500, Winston 500 at Talladega and the Southern 500. The only leg of the Big Four he did not win was the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte.

The million-dollar victory was huge in 1985 and helped elevate NASCAR into the mainstream media. Even as the last of the confetti was landing on Elliott's Ford Thunderbird in Darlington's Victory Lane after the Southern 500, it appeared nothing was going to keep the driver from Dawsonville, Ga., from winning the championship.

Darrell Waltrip thought otherwise.

Waltrip was 206 points behind with eight races remaining, but would use all of team owner Junior Johnson's horsepower -- and Waltrip's cunning psychological warfare -- to erase the deficit and win the title by 101 points over Elliott. Waltrip drove to victory at Richmond and finished second at Dover and Martinsville to cut Elliott's lead by 23 points. He took the lead from Elliott at Charlotte when he finished 14th and Elliott was 30th, giving Waltrip a 30-point edge. Elliott rallied back in the final three races, as each driver won one race and finished in the top four in those contests to give Waltrip a 20-point lead entering the final race. But the dramatic conclusion to the season fizzled when Elliott's Ford had transmission problems and finished 31st while Waltrip's seventh-place finish was enough for his third -- and final -- Cup championship.

The reason this is rated so high is how Elliott could dominate on superspeedways -- winning 11 out of 28 races -- but falter on short tracks. His inability to win one race on the short tracks kept him from winning the title.

No. 3 -- 1981 -- Darrell Waltrip

DW gets another high entry on my list because of his heated battle with Bobby Allison. Waltrip had moved over to Junior Johnson's NASCAR team while Allison had replaced Waltrip at DiGard Racing. Allison continued to harbor resentment at the legendary Johnson from the days that he raced for that team.

In 1981, Waltrip was 341 points behind Allison after running at Texas World Speedway in College Station, the 14th of a 31-race season. He bounced back in an 11-race run in which he overtook Allison. During that span, Waltrip had four wins, nine top-3 finishes and was never outside the top-10. He took a two-point lead over Allison at Dover with six races remaining and then disposed of his rival with four straight wins, a second-place finish and a sixth-place in the season finale at Riverside Raceway. Ironically, Allison won that race but lost the championship to Waltrip by 53 points. It was the first of Waltrip's two consecutive championships and third overall.

No. 4 -- 1979 -- Richard Petty

This was the passing of the torch in NASCAR as the 1979 championship was Petty's seventh and final title. But in order to win, he had to overcome a huge lead by the brash newcomer, Darrell Waltrip.

With 11 races to go, Petty was 229 points behind Waltrip. From that point forward, Petty made up the gap in what would be -- at the time -- the closest title race in NASCAR history.

With seven races remaining, The King still found himself down by 187 points, but won at Dover while Waltrip finished 29th, the combination slicing the deficit to 83 points. He continued to chip away and finally took the lead with a win at Rockingham. Waltrip finished fifth at Atlanta and Petty sixth and it was enough to give Waltrip the lead with one to go. It was another tight race battle at Riverside with Petty finishing fifth and Waltrip eighth, giving Petty the title by 11 points.

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president of competition, was a crew member at Petty Enterprises during that championship race. "That head-to-head race with Darrell and the chess game that was played between Richard and Darrell and Dale Inman [Petty's crew chief], to watch how all that unfolded was quite memorable," Pemberton recalled. "We still won some more races, but to be there for his last championship was special, although we didn't know at the time it would be his last championship. The team stayed buttoned up, kept charging forward and didn't make mistakes. It was a close-knit group at Petty Enterprises. It was great to be a part of that."

This was a key moment in NASCAR history because the following season Dale Earnhardt would win the first of his seven Cup championships as a new group of stars became central in the sport. And while Petty would go on to win a seventh Daytona 500 in 1981 and scored his 200th Cup win in 1984, he was never again a serious contender for a championship.

No. 5 -- 2004 -- Kurt Busch

In the first year of the Chase for the Championship, Kurt Busch entered the season's final race as the leader, averting disaster when he lost a wheel on his car. Teammate Greg Biffle won the race, but Busch's fifth-place finish was enough to win the championship by eight points over Jimmie Johnson in what remains the closest points race in NASCAR Cup history.

"That year in '04, when I won [the title], there were five guys mathematically eligible for the championship. That's what we want to see every year and we have a great shot at it this year with the three guys that have separated themselves," Busch said. "Over the years in general, it's been a two-horse race coming to the end. But '92 sticks out and '04 sticks out for sure. It's amazing what the Chase format does to the nerves and to the teams and the drivers. I remember Jack Roush's famous speech before the Homestead week and that was, 'We have to prepare to fail.' I'm looking at him going, 'This is the speech being given before we head to Homestead? I'm confused.'

"There are so many emotions and so many different thoughts. Nine weeks can turn into nine months or these nine or 10 weeks can turn into nine or 10 days. It's amazing how it all happens, and when you're in that groove that [Jimmie] Johnson's been in, like I was in '04, it seems like everything just clicks. There's nothing that you second guess. You're always in the right groove and you never have to look back. You just keep looking forward at what the next task is."

Since that time, some teams have figured out how to make the Chase work to their advantage. The reason the first Chase was so successful was that the concept was so new, many of the teams hadn't figured it out, and thus it was a level playing field. But as seasons went on, Jimmie Johnson's Hendrick Motorsports team rose to the top with four straight championships from 2006 to 2009. He could make it five straight this season, but he will have to overcome a 33-point deficit to Denny Hamlin over the next two races.