Thirty-three years after his death, there’s still an Alan Kulwicki-sized hole in NASCAR.
It’s not specifically due to Kulwicki’s greatness as a driver, though the five-time Cup Series winner and 1992 Cup Series champion was excellent behind the wheel.
It’s because Kulwicki was about as much of a self-made man as you can find. He was pragmatic and did things his way, and he couldn’t care less if anyone agreed with him.
That’s what won him a NASCAR championship and made many of his fellow competitors try their hand at being owner-drivers in the years following his 1992 title. Few of them had any success at all, and none of them replicated what Kulwicki had been able to do as an owner-driver.
In 1985, Kulwicki sold most of his belongings and trekked to North Carolina in his pickup truck, which caught fire. He had borrowed another truck in order to haul his trailer to Charlotte.
The Greenfield, Wis., native who would come to be known as NASCAR’s