In this episode of 'Shift', Richard Petty takes us back to 1992 and what the NASCAR world thought of the addition of lights to the high banks of Charlotte Motor Speedway for the Winston All-Star race.
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00:00In 1992, Bruton Smith and Humphrey Wheeler and R.J.
00:17Reynolds, they all decide they're going to come up and they're going to light Charlotte
00:20Motor Speedway on a mile and a half racetrack.
00:23And everybody said, it can't be done.
00:29The fans showed up like they didn't know what was going to happen, you know what I
00:33mean?
00:34Something new actually.
00:35Yeah.
00:36I didn't think anything about it.
00:40We run Bowman Gray, we run a bunch of races at night.
00:44We run some dirt tracks at night.
00:46Man, you know, I used to run dirt tracks with 40 light wall bulbs in each corner.
00:51This thing here is lit so good, I don't know how to handle it.
00:54Once they turn the lights and stuff on, it's brighter than it is during the day.
01:00Did you ever think about, what if you're out there at 180 or 90 and the lights go out?
01:09We was running on a West Virginia, a little half mile, we was out there running around
01:13and the lights go out.
01:18Completely go out.
01:19Well, it's just completely dark.
01:22They had a bunch of people sitting around in the infield, a bunch of them weren't smart
01:26enough to turn their lights on.
01:28I ran a couple of laps in the dark because I was afraid to slow down, afraid somebody
01:33would run over me.
01:36You got to figure, your mind is so concentrated on where you're at and what's going on anyway.
01:43I think it'd be all right.
01:47When they ran the all-star race under the lights, it was a huge event.
01:54That just gives the sport another avenue to get to the fans.
02:01Everybody can't come out on Sunday so they can sit and watch a race or go to a race at
02:05nighttime and really not change their schedule a whole lot.
02:11For the drivers and the crews and stuff, they love it.
02:15They can work on the car during the day, run the race, then they can go home and be
02:18home on Sunday.
02:24Lighting that one single speedway changed the sport.
02:30It was a big success because everybody come out just to see what it was.
02:46And it's Kyle Petty, Kyle Petty coming to the checkered flag.
02:51Here comes Davey Allison to the bottom.
02:53It'll be the finish.
03:01Once they lit the racetrack at Charlotte, that gave all the rest of the racetrack and
03:06all of NASCAR a chance to expand even more than what they already had.
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