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1989-1996 Seasons

NASCAR's Rookie Of The Year

1989

Dick Trickle, 48, officially became the oldest Rookie of the Year in the history of NASCAR Winston Cup racing. The driver from Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., who has won more than 1,200 feature races, most of them on short tracks, led most of the way and finished his first full season in NASCAR's premier series with 295 points in the rookie competition sponsored by Champion Spark Plug Co. and Sears Roebuck and Co. Trickle, driving for the Miller-Stavola Brothers team, was the highest finishing rookie in 11 of the 27 races he ran as a registered rookie. He had three third-place finishes, was fourth once and fifth twice.

This is an honor we really worked hard to win. When I joined with the Stavola team this year, we felt we had a shot at it if I stayed around the whole year.

Opportunity Calls Wisconsin Rapids' Trickle Makes Most Of Chance To Compete On NASCAR Circuit

The events of March 3 are forever etched in the mind of Dick Trickle. It was on that day the world's winningest stock car driver was given the biggest opportunity in his 30-year racing career. Stavola Brothers Racing team needed someone behind the steering wheel of its No. 84 Miller High Life Buick for the NASCAR Winston Cup Goodwrench 500 at Rockingham, N.C. The SOS went out to Wisconsin Rapids two days before the race. Trickle made it to Rockingham, started 42nd and finished 13th. He drove in the next three NASCAR races and finished third, 25th and 11th, respectively, quickly establishing himself in the eyes of those who matter - car owners. Trickle, who has won more than 1,000 races, but never one in NASCAR, time has come.

It's the biggest break I've had. I was beginning to wonder if I would ever get the chance. I did have my doubts.

Trickle's opportunity came at the expense of two accidents. A crash at Pocono, Pa., last year put NASCAR veteran Bobby Allison in the hospital and moved Mike Alexander of Franklin, Tenn., into the No. 84 car. Alexander, who has 66 NASCAR starts, crashed in a non-Winston Cup event late last year and crashed again at the Daytona 500 this year. He finished 27th at Daytona and was set to race at Rockingham but was physically unable. Miller Crew Chief Jimmy Fennig knew just who to call on short notice.

I knew Jimmy from when he was the crew chief for Mark Martin in ASA. He called me on a Friday and wanted to know if I could get down there that day. I wasn't feeling very good. I had bronchitis, a lung infection, an ear infection and it was the day we had that snow storm. But none of that was going to stop me. There was only one flight out of 11 that got out of Central Wisconsin (Airport) and I was on it. I would have drove down there if I had to.

Trickle saved his driving for the track. His third at Atlanta was his best finish in 18 Winston Cup starts going back to 1973. He's earned almost $55,000 this year and is in the battle for rookie of the year honors at age 47. Entering today's Valleydale Meats 500 at Bristol, Tenn., Trickle has amassed 37 rookie points. He didn't get any points from Rockingham because he wasn't registered for them, otherwise he would be closer to leader Larry Pearson, who has 52. Rick Mast is second with 50 and Ben Hess third with 44. Trickle doesn't concern himself with his rookie status or his NASCAR future. He's assured of at least four more races with Stavola Brothers Racing. If Alexander should come back, there is a chance Trickle could catch on with another team and finish out the 29-race season.

It's been a race-by-race thing since I've started. I'm just concentrating on doing as well as I can and would like to even win a race. I've done pretty well so far. I've opened a few eyes down here. A few teams have talked to me, which makes me feel good.

Trickle feels good because he's simply racing. It's a bonus to be doing it with the big boys and on their turf. It's a double bonus to get a ride with an established team.

That's been the key. Getting the chance to compete in the car that Bobby Allison drove and to get with a team of this caliber is what made this all possible. My experience helped, but it probably wouldn't have been the same with a different team.

The two-time American Speed Association champion contemplated several times putting together a team to compete in NASCAR. But it never got to the point where he had enough backing to produce a team that could run with the lead pack.

I would have liked to have gone NASCAR full-time years ago but I just never had the right opportunity arise. I could have probably put something together or gotten a ride with a smaller team but then you're probably not going to be good enough to ride up front. And if that's the case, why do it? It had to be the right situation, where I could be competitive, and that's where I am now. I haven't been sitting around, waiting for a ride. They called me.

And off he went.

Trickle Makes Mark In NASCAR

Dick Trickle has been racing 30 years, claims more short-track stock car victories than anybody and ran his first Winston Cup race 16 years ago. But the 47-year-old driver remains a rookie in NASCAR's eyes, so he signed up to challenge for rookie-of-the-year. The title earns $20,000, plus a $1,000 sponsorship for each race the driver runs next year.

I've got to go to all the rookie meetings. Why not get some of the benefits?

In two more races, Trickle will have doubled in one season the number of races - 14 - he had run in Winston Cup competition since his first, a fifth-place showing at Charlotte, N.C., in 1973. And the Wisconsin Rapids driver is leading for rookie-of-the-year as a substitute for a substitute in the car that Bobby Allison might have driven this year. In 12 races he has posted four top-five finishes, but none above 24th in his last five races heading into Sunday's Miller 400 at Brooklyn, Mich. Trickle stepped into the No. 84 gold Buick in the second race of the year after Mike Alexander drove it in the season-opening Daytona 500. Alexander, who had replaced Allison at mid-season last year after a racing crash critically injured the veteran, was critically injured himself in a race in December. Although Alexander came back to race at Daytona, he had not fully recovered, so Trickle has held the wheel since.

Basically it's the same thing I've done only I'm meeting a lot of new people and get a lot more attention. When it comes down to the racing it's what I've been doing for 25-30 years. It's a somewhat higher level. What you could do with yourself and maybe four or five guys now takes you and 20 guys. Eighty percent of the tracks that Winston Cup runs on I've never seen, and that's a slight disadvantage. Mike's recuperation is a bit slower than anticipated. Mike made a statement that he did have a concussion and he wanted to be fully recovered (before racing again). I think that's going to run out through this year.

At Pocono International Raceway, brake problems got his Buick off to a bad start in the Miller 500 and he finished 24th, 10 laps down. The competition is tougher, Trickle, who continues racing his own cars on short tracks in the eastern United States and Canada, can bank on the experience that built more than 1,000 short-track wins, including 67 feature victories in 1972 alone. But some of the younger drivers can get one edge on him - for now. Trickle, is steadily reducing that edge with each race as he subs for Alexander.

Nearing the mid-point of the season, Trickle leads Larry Pearson 133 points to 127 for the top spot among nine drivers for the rookie title. Hut Stricklin is third at 101. Points are based on the top 15 finishes for each driver. Trickle figures the second half of the season will go better for him because he will have seen many of the tracks before. After this weekend, all but two of the remaining 15 races will be second visits for this year's Winston Cup circuit. Trickle didn't race at one of them, Daytona, but showed with third-place finishes at Atlanta and Martinsville, Va., that he can contend. Not that he didn't know that already. Although he had run only 14 Winston Cup races before, Trickle had raced many of his current competitors before - even Bobby Allison.

The greats are here. I've raced 'em here, there and everywhere off the Winston Cup circuit. That's one of the reasons I've been accepted. Darrell Waltrip and (Dale) Earnhardt and Rusty (Wallace), I've run against 'em. When they come to my field I tend to beat them. I think we're pretty competitive already, but I think we can be more competitive.

Now, his challenge is do do it on their turf.

After Paying Dues, Trickle Moves Up

He may be a rookie on the NASCAR Winston Cup auto racing circuit, but Dick Trickle has been around long enough not to get caught up in the rumors. Trickle, 46, is well on his way to winning NASCAR's Rookie of the Year Award. He got his first full-time NASCAR ride in the second race of the season when Mike Alexander was injured in an accident. Alexander had been filling in for the injured Bobby Allison in the Stovola Brothers Buick Regal. Now, as the season's second half gets into full swing, Trickle's name is being mentioned by a couple of teams for a ride of his own for next season. Trickle said Thursday from his home in Wisconsin Rapids, where he is preparing for Saturday night's CWRA Summer Championships at the Dells Motor Speedway in Wisconsin Dells,

It's definitely gossip season. There's a lot of kicking the can here and there, but it's nothing solid. There are a lot of 3-year (driver) contracts ending this year so there could be a lot of movement.

The big-money teams will be attempting to lure the big-name drivers and Trickle hopes he can catch on somewhere amidst the shuffle. The all-time winningest short-track driver has already posted a pair of third-place finishes on the circuit this season along with one fourth and one fifth-place showing, improving his stock dramatically. After paying his dues on the short tracks for years, Trickle says he's ready for a NASCAR ride of his own.

But I'm not going to run with inferior equipment just to have a ride. A lot of people said I should have been down here full-time 10 years ago, but I have no regrets. I wanted to make sure I was getting into the right situation like I have with the Stovola Brothers. I wouldn't be completely unhappy to return to the short tracks full-time.

Trickle plans to complete the season with the Stovola Brothers and then just let things happen as they may. If he doesn't get a ride for next season, he says he'll continue doing what he likes best. If he continues enjoying the success he's had so far this season, don't bet on seeing Dick Trickle back on a consistent basis anytime soon.

Dick Trickle won the first of his back-to-back Southwest Tour victories at Phoenix in 1989, then celebrated with a sponsor-driven dousing.

Dick Trickle Is NASCAR's Newest Good Ol' Boy

Last March in the middle of Dick Trickle's first NASCAR Winston Cup race this year, the Goodwrench 500, in Rockingham, N.C., his car screeched into the pits during a caution period. Two mechanics dived headfirst into Trickle's car, one through each window, flapping their legs in the air to keep their balance as they frantically made what appeared to be adjustments to the gold Buick. In fact, they were wrestling with their driver's feet.

I had a new pair of cowboy boots on, and they were not broken in enough yet. So when the floorboard got hot, my feet swelled up and started hurting like a son of a gun. I radioed in and told my crew I needed a regular pair of driving shoes.

On the NASCAR circuit, Trickle is often described as a throwback. The cowboy boot story — the boots were snakeskin, of course — is the sort of tale you hear about such legendary drivers as Curtis Turner, Fireball Roberts or Buck Baker. ''Dick Trickle is like stock car drivers used to be, before they started making a ton of money,'' says one of his teammates. ''What you see is what you get.'' Not always. What you see is possibly the most experienced stock car driver in racing; what you get is a NASCAR rookie. Unless he slugs NASCAR boss Bill France Jr. before the organization's banquet at the Waldorf-Astoria on Dec. 1, Dick Trickle, 48, grandfather of two, winner of some 1,200 stock car events in his 31 years of racing — the most by any driver alive — will be named Winston Cup Rookie of the Year. His stats and mileage notwithstanding, until this year Trickle had never spent a full season on stock car racing's top rung. By NASCAR rules, that makes him a rookie, and rightly so, because Trickle hasn't had much experience on big tracks, where racers draft at 200 miles an hour. While driving on the two-car Stavola Brothers Miller High Life team this year, he had seven top five finishes and finished 15th in the point standings; the next closest rookie, Larry Pearson, was 23rd.

Trickle, who hails from Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., had won a number of championships on Midwest circuits. Most notably, he was ARTGO champion seven times and twice the American Speed Association (ASA) champion, as well as runner-up six times in that outfit's series. But he had never traveled south to run in the Winston Cup circuit because he had never been offered the opportunity, and he had never sought it because things were going so well for him at home. Even this year, his success has been partly a matter of luck. At the beginning of the season, Trickle had no idea he would be on a Winston Cup team. He was driving his own car on the Midwest short-track racing circuit when he got a call in Wisconsin Rapids one Thursday night in March. On the line was the Stavola Brothers crew chief, Jim Fenning, asking whether Trickle could catch the next plane to North Carolina to drive for the Stavolas at Rockingham. Fenning and Ron Puryear, then the Stavola Brothers team manager, told Trickle that one of the team's drivers, Mike Alexander, had withdrawn from the race after one day of practice because he was suffering from vertigo, the result of a concussion he had received in a previous crash. The team had been polled, and Trickle was its choice. He started last and finished 13th in the grueling 500-lap race — after the midrace change of footwear. He finished third in his next race, in Atlanta, and kept the ride for the rest of the season on a race-by-race basis, with only a handshake for a contract.

Over the years Trickle has attracted a following among racing fans in the Midwest. Now he has been discovered by southern fans as well. Trickle is easygoing and delivers quips with the timing of a natural comedian. He looks like a cowboy, without the hat. He's 5 ft. 7 in., with blue eyes, a square jaw, reddish hair flecked with gray and bowed legs covered by blue jeans. He still wears his snakeskin boots when he races his own short-track Camaros. Fans like Trickle because he's one of them; he can usually be found with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other — he figures he drinks 40 cups of coffee a day and won't admit to the number of cigarettes he smokes, but it has to be as many. At the end of the day he likes to have a "barley pop" or two, and he has been known to stay out late with the boys. The amazing thing about Trickle is not that he's breaking new ground by running over drivers half his age — his teammate, Bobby Hillin Jr., is 25 — but that three decades of grinding out a living on small racetracks across the country have taken no apparent toll on him. He estimates that he has driven in four or five thousand races. For the past 20 or so years, he has worked around the clock to prepare his cars and tow them hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles to races, and he has had his body hammered for hours on end by noise, heat, vibration, G's and crashes. He has been battered, but never seriously hurt. Such a life, Trickle believes, has kept him young.

Someone recently asked me what it felt like to be a 48-year-old rookie, and I said I couldn't tell them because I knew what it felt like to be a rookie, but not 48. The trick to life is feeling good. If you're feeling good, life's fun. I had an old boy worked for me once, said he liked to get sick once in a while, made you appreciate your health.

A driver must have a steely back and strong shoulders, not to mention superlative concentration, but what has sustained Trickle, beyond endurance and enthusiasm, is his phenomenal energy.

I'm a fast liver. I don't waste a lot of my life. I've been blessed with natural staying power; it ain't something I got to work at. I get by on less sleep, by a lot. I've got to go to bed late because if I don't, I get up too early; then I'm tired when it's time to go racing. If I went to bed early, at 11 o'clock like some of those guys, I'd be up at four in the morning. Four to six hours a night is about how much I sleep. Six is a catch-up.

Trickle was born and raised in tiny Rudolph, Wis. . .My vocabulary isn't so good 'cause how many words do you need to know with 100 people? The dictionary in school was only that thick. (He holds his thumb and index finger an inch apart.) He was the oldest of five children, and the family was not well off. . .We didn't have a car — come to think of it, we didn't even have plumbing.

His determination and resilience were tested early. When he was eight he fell from a 20-foot-high beam at a construction site where he was playing, landed on a concrete pad and shattered his left hip. For two years he was in a cast and got around mostly by crawling. His leg was strapped up behind him for another year, and he walked with crutches. While mending, he was taken by a neighbor to his first jalopy race.

Nothing that had ever happened in my life until then ever got my attention like that one race. I went home determined that when I got older, I'd make race driving my life.

Trickle got a head start. His father, Leo, and uncle, Leonard, were blacksmiths who mostly worked at repairing farm equipment. After that first race, Dick began collecting pieces of steel junk that Leo and Leonard didn't need. These went into what he called his hope chest: They would help him build a race car. His first racer was a '49 Ford; he paid $32.50 for it. At 16, Trickle was pushing other jalopies out of the way on the local dirt track, with the manure spreader from his hope chest, which he had made into the Ford's front bumper. In the '60s, he says,

I was like a pool hustler with my own cue. I began traveling out of state with my buddies, and everywhere we went, we blew 'em away.

In the '70s he earned fame, running giant 454-cubic-inch engines on tiny tracks; in '71, '72 and '73 he built his own engines and won 165 feature races. He also was a pro snowmobile racer for 14 winters in the '60s and '70s. He suffered his worst injury, in fact, during a snowmobile race when he broke his right ankle. He has been around — and on top — for so long that he can look back at the time — in the mid-'70s — when he took Rusty Wallace under his wing. Trickle would never have believed then that in 1989 Wallace would win the Winston Cup and Trickle would be named Rooke of the Year. Maybe in the Twilight Zone.

Since 1984, Trickle MotorSports has been housed in an 8,400-square-foot shop in Wisconsin Rapids. Trickle moved to town when he was 19, the same year he married his high school sweetheart, Darlene. She's the secretary-treasurer and de facto boss of the operation; the oldest of their three children, Vicky, 27, also works there. The 29-race Winston Cup season has cut into Trickle's short- track program, but he still runs races from Canada to Florida. Next year, Trickle will be driving the number 66 car for Cale Yarborough's Phillips 66/Trop-Arctic Motor Oil Team.

Short tracks are a lot of fun, and I make a good living at it, but I'd like to stay in Winston Cup. After you've been racing 30 years, there's nothing better than a challenge. And when you're 48 and feel like you're 30, the way I figure is, you've got 18 years' experience ahead of the others.

Rusty Wallace collected the first $1 million championship payoff in auto racing at the richest NASCAR Winston Cup awards banquet ever. Dick Trickle collected $20,000 from Champion and Sears, Roebuck and Co. as rookie of the year.

We even won the NASCAR Southwest Tour race at Phoenix that November...

A Rookie Of The Year Season

The 1989 season...spent working with Dick Trickle...along with Mike Alexander, Bobby Hillin and Alan Kulwicki...is one of the most memorable years of my career. Mike had gotten injured in the Snowball Derby at Pensacola, Fla., in December 1988 and pulled himself out of the ride the weekend of the February Rockingham race. Team owner Billy Stavola called in the services of Trickle and then the fun and games began for this motorsports PR practitioner. I'll never forget the first race working with Dick. Trickle pulled into the Rockingham pits and crew member Kenny Freeman climbed into the cockpit. "What's that all about?" a concerned media member quizzed. "Must be major chassis adjustments?" he continued when I didn't respond. That's what was reported...major chassis adjustments made. I just couldn't tell him that the real reason was because Dick's cowboy boot was making his right foot swell and Freeman was sent in to get it removed.

The remainder of the season spent with Dick included some of the most interesting...and entertaining...experiences of my career. I wish that I had written down all of his special "sayings" that he had for most every occasion. "Trickle-isms" I called them. Dick got the most possible out of the situation that year...almost winning a couple of races and recording six top-fives and nine top-10s...and taking the Cup Rookie-of-the-Year award at age 47. We had so much fun that season with all the ESPN attention. Dan Patrick was doing sports on an Atlanta radio station, too, and that made for a great Atlanta "media blitz" prior to the season finale. Soon-to-be-Rookie-of-the-Year Dick Trickle and soon-to-be-series-champ Rusty Wallace crossed paths many times and it was a thrill to witness it all unfold first-hand.

March 19, 1989
Midwestern short-track legend Dick Trickle finishes a career-best third behind Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt in a 500-mile race at Atlanta.

Darrell Waltrip Sped past Trickle with nine laps remaining & won the Motorcraft Quality Parts 500. It was the second win of the season for the Chevrolet driver. Waltrip & Dale Earnhardt were the principles in the final laps. Earnhardt had led laps 278-314 before the final caution flag flew with 14 laps to go. Earnhardt & Waltrip pitted while Trickle stayed on the track. His second start in the Stavola Brothers Buick he came in 3rd (qualified 18th) with Kyle Petty 4th & Sterling Marlin 5th.

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Wallace drove his Blue Max Racing Pontiac to a 0.26 second victory over Darrell Waltrip in a 15 lap dash to the flag following the 20th caution period. Geoff Bodine came in 3rd & took the lead in the point standings. Davey Allison came from 31st starting spot to finish 4th, & Trickle was 5th (Qualified 27th) in the Valleydale Meats 500 at Bristol in April.

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Monday, April 17, 1989 - North Wilkesboro, N.C.

Dale Earnhardt won for the first time in 16 NASCAR Winston Cup races, pulling away from Alan Kulwicki in the final four laps Sunday to capture the First Union 400 at North Wilkesboro Speedway. The victory, Earnhardt's first since August, gave the three-time series champion the Winston Cup driving lead by three points over Geoff Bodine. Kulwicki was on Earnhardt's bumper through much of the final 10 laps. He failed in his bid to pass on the 394th lap, and his hopes ended with four laps left when he slid to the high side of the second turn on his final attempt to pass Earnhardt. Earnhardt, in a Chevrolet, finished about 25 car lengths ahead of Kulwicki, who nipped third-place Mark Martin at the finish. Dick Trickle finished fourth (Qualified 10th) and Terry Labonte fifth.

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In 1989 Trickle led eight separate races. His best run came at Martinsville. On lap 442 of 500 Dick passed Dale Earnhardt to take the lead of the race. Darrell Waltrip got around Trickle eight laps later, but Trickle had shown he had what it took to lead in the big leagues. Eventually Dale passed Trickle as well. After the race NASCAR noticed Earnhardt's Chevy was missing a pair of lug nuts. Had that infraction been caught in the pits, Dale would have been forced to stop again to have the lug nuts installed, which almost certainly would have given Trickle second.

Darrell Waltrip scooted past Trickle with 51 laps to go & won the Pannill Sweatshirts 500 at Martinsville in April. The 42 year-old Franklin, Tn veteran won in a Monte Carlo in its farewell to the Winston Cup Series. Chevrolet teams would switch to the new Lumina effective with the Winston 500 at Talladega. Waltrip beat Earnhardt by 6.79 seconds while 47 year-old rookie, who qualified 13th, held on for 3rd place. Rick Wilson was 4th & Terry Labonte 5th.

Will Trickle win before he retires? I sure hope so. I think they get champagne.

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8th in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona in July (qualified 16th).

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8th in the Miller High Life 400 at Richmond in September (qualified 21st).

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Monday, September 25, 1989

Waltrip wins Goody's 500: Darrell Waltrip slipped past former St. Louisan Rusty Wallace and Dale Earnhardt for the lead with 46 laps left and won the Goody's 500, his third consecutive triumph at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. Wallace faded to 4th with tire problems. The victory, worth $55,650, was Waltrip's 11th at the .526-mile track and his fourth in the last five races on the low-banked layout. Waltrip, who averaged 76.571 mph in winning for the sixth time this season and the 79th time in his career, took the checkered flag under caution after his younger brother, Michael, spun out on lap 498.

Harry Gant, who was 0.99 of a second behind the leader when the yellow flag dropped, was second, followed by Dick Trickle (qualified 5th), Wallace and Dale Jarrett.

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5th in the AC-Delco 500 at North Carolina Motor Speedway in October (qualified 16th).

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7th in the Autoworks 500 at Phoenix in November (qualified 10th).

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