NEIL BONNETT - 07/30/1946 - 02/11/1994
after a successful career in the NASCAR series and winning 18 races; Bonnett was sidelined during his second stint with the Wood Brothers in 1990 after a crash at Darlington, SC in the spring of that year left him with cracked ribs, a broken sternum, and amnesia. When he was finally released from the hospital, he returned home to a family he did not recognize, referring to wife Susan as “that woman,” and having to be introduced to his own children. It was a hellish few months for the family as gradually bits and pieces of his life returned to memory and the racing world watched and worried. With all the doctors agreeing on the fact that racing was out of the question, this man who loved it so, stayed close to his sport by becoming a race commentator for CBS and TNN, and fans immediately took to his down-home descriptions of all things racing. “Tight is when you see the wall before you hit it. Loose is when you don’t get to see the wreck.” As biased as some race fans can be, I don’t think there was a single one who didn’t love Neil Bonnett. He just had that friendly, neighborly way about him, on the TV screen and in real life. So popular was he that TNN gave him his own show called “Winners”, where a dressed down Neil interviewed racing personalities from every venue of the sport, from his own living room. The fans were happy, and we all hoped that Neil was too, but that love of racing was still in his heart and he longed to go back to it. In 1993, he finally got medical clearance to get behind the wheel again, and spent time testing for Richard Childress racing, on the recommendation of his best friend and fishing partner, Dale
Dale Earnhardt, who raced for Childress. By Talladega that July, the pair convinced Richard to field a second car for Neil, the only time there were two black Goodwrench Chevrolets in a race. Bonnett wound up flying into the catch fence in a frightening imitation of Bobby Allison’s crash in 1987. Not in the least discouraged, Neil found a sponsor in Country Time Lemonade for a limited run in 1994, and prepared to go racing in his own #51. On February 11 of 1994, word came from the speedway that Neil had been injured in a practice crash, and then the racing world received the news that Neil had died in the wreck. Ironically, it happened in the same fourth turn that seven years later would claim the life of his best friend. Twice in the season just past, Neil had used his “Winners” program to eulogize a fellow racer, those drivers of course being Alan Kulwicki and Davey Allison. The week after Neil’s death, TNN ran a final episode of “Winners”, dedicated solely to Neil and his great impact on the sport of auto racing. So moved was his best friend Dale, that a full two years later, when asked by some witless reporter if he still missed his Buddy, he replied, “Hell yes! I still can’t even go fishing in my own pond.”
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