Man, I still remember thinking "wow...he won it with a flat RF!!" that was awesome...thanks for sharing.

That was a great race. I think the tv show was helped by the interveiw with Terry before the race. It was fun seeing it live though.

WOW, when I seen the title of this thread all kinds of things came flooding back!! As I opened the thread and began to read, the tears started to flow. This was such an emotional night for SO many reasons. It is hard to believe it has been almost 10 years since this happened. Some times it seems like it was yesterday and other times it seems like a lifetime ago. All I can say is that every race he ran and every crash he had seemed like it was all worth it in that one night. Terry had an electricity to him that night that I had never seen before. He REALLY KNEW that he COULD win it!!! He just knew it. I was so excited I could not hardly breathe watching him work his way through the traffic I just kept praying Lord Keep Him Safe, Lord give the drivers around him wisdom to make wise decisions so nobody will wreck and nobody will get hurt. When it started to look like he might actually win it then I REALLY got excited and then the caution and the flat, I prayed GOD PLEASE don't let them blackflag him. He is So close and he has worked SO hard, not just tonight but his WHOLE career. God honored that prayer and put him in the winners circle. He went on that season to have the best season he had ever had. I think it was 19 races he won that year!! Thanks everyone for the memories and thank you to all of you who ever cheered for Terry, supported Terry in anyway and who stopped by and said Hi in the pits, the list goes on and on. I am just truly grateful for all the years he got to do what he LOVED and that he came away in one piece and that he got to race until he was ready to walk away. I worried the last 2 or 3 years fearing he was getting too old and I had an older gentleman I sat with in the pits at Gas City tell me one night, Terry will know when it is time. Then Terry told me that he had decided he would race until he was 60 and that was what he did. God was faithful and we have some wonderful memories of people, races, tracks, racers, as I said earlier, the list goes on and on. I don't think I would want to go back to those days but I would not trade them for anything either if that makes sense. LOL

Great stuff, pletchfan. Thank you for sharing!

Thanks Richie. I am flooded with SO MANY memories of that night, I could probably write a book but I did not feel this was the place. I tried to express the feelings without being too lengthy. Again, Thanks SO much to everyone that went with us on that wonderful sprint car journey down through the years!!!
Everybody might get a kick out of this. I just clicked on the youtube link and watched it again. I knew what was going to happen and still that feeling in the pit of my stomach. The dread, the excitement the nervousness it was all there and the tears again when the checkereds were thrown!!! This was a VERY SPECIAL memory!!! Thanks for posting this.

Did you happen to notice it was the 29th running of the Tony Hulman Classic and that was TP's car number??

I never noticed that. That must've been an omen.

That was one of the greatest races I have ever seen! I watched it on TV and remember thinking how cool it would have been to see it in person. When the camera zoomed in on that flat right front, I thought oh noooooooo.
That was a career drive by TP. AWESOME! :respect:
David.