I know, you're probably thinking "Dude, isn't this already on the channel? What gives?" Well, when I ripped this race from a DVD in 2016, for some reason, one of the middle portions of the disc would NOT read to save it's life. Soooo, for the past 7 years, this race wasn't technically complete... the original upload had been missing over 30 mins of footage. Welp, with the help of technology (a basic disc resurfacing lol), I was finally able to get the entire disc to read, so now we have a complete, definitive cut of this sad-but-important classic. R.I.P. JD McDuffie, one of the last true independents and, from all accounts, a fantastic human being.
Dude! I was wondering where Nascarman got that "Nascubs" clip from! Anyway, glad you're able to upload the whole race in full. Despite the Tragedy of JD's death, it was still a great race, and a good race is what JD would've wanted...
You wouldn’t possibly be able to find the ARCA race from Michigan 1998. It was my Fathers only ARCA start and he ran 6th. I cannot find it anywhere and I know he’d love to be able to re watch it once. Thanks.
I always remember seeing an interview with JD McDuffie's wife, years after, saying nobody ever offered to help the family or anything and she basically lost everything. That suprised me. For one, every man should try to make preparations to support his family if he is gone and for two, I am suprised none of the drivers, owners or Nascar executives ever tried to offer her any support! Even in small amounts to save a house or anything! Even if they would have started a campaign for the fans to help, they would have!
Hell, I was 11 yrs old when this race and accident happened, had his diecast car and everything, still have it. I woulda sent even $10 to help if I could have
Boy that's tough to hear. By this era these drivers were making big money. They could have passed a helmet around and raised enough to pay off a reasonable size house for Ima Jean. She passed away in 2021, and apparently during the Watkins Glenn race.
I was 9 years old. I was there. The thing that always stuck with me is that a man died... It only paused the race for less than an hour and they continued like it didn't happen
This entire race was weird. They announce McDuffie's death and go back to racing. OK, I get that. After the race starts up again, it seems like an afterthought. Race finishes, they are all celebrating in victory lane. Just weird.
Several takes from this race. 1) this race is what made Jimmy Means stop racing. Jimmy said years later that he had dreams seeing what he saw looking in J.D's car and he didn't want that happening to him. I remember watching this race and after seeing the crowd of workers holding up the boards and taking the car away covered with a tarp, my dad said right then, that McDuffie was dead. And just by the way Means was acting, he knew it. Apparently, there was blood pooling on the roof while the car was upside-down and McDuffie's arms were just dangling while upside-down. He yelled at J.D asking if he was ok, and never got a response. I give Jimmy a lot of respect. He's never shared details of what he saw in the car, but hes lived with it ever since. A lot of what I know i got from my cousin who is a NC state trooper and has worked every Charlotte race since 1990. Talking to a Nascar employee one time this wreck came up and thats when he was told about the blood and arms.
Didn't he retire during Speedweeks 94? I know with what happened to Neil and Rodney it had to give him flashbacks to this race. I agree though, Jimmy has never (to my knowledge) ever talked about what he saw and I know he's carried that with him since
I had a big C-Band satellite back in those days and would find the wild backhaul feed every Sunday. No commercials and when they went to a break I could still watch the race and listen to the announcers talk about the race in ways they couldn't when they were "Live" for the network. Those were the glory days.
With regard to NASCAR, those feeds ended after the 2000 season when the broadcasts became encrypted. You could still go to a racetrack though and plug your scanner feed into the TV broadcast but that got removed around 2018 (at least for FOX, NBC still does it.)@@allstarchris1
Hard to make out but I believe Bob said faintly at 59:20 "This is the first time this has ever happened to me... in Winston Cup." You can tell it affected him a lot, no sports broadcaster wants to have to be the one reporting a death of their athlete.
I was at that race, and have been present for 2 racing fatalities. It is just as heart wrenching rewatching some 30+ years later. And as a racer myself, always makes you stop and rethink your safety package.
At 35:15 you can tell that Ned Jarrett knows JD didn't make it. Then at 36:40 Bob Jenkins says "We're on satellite." In other words, don't say anything. Great win for Ernie Irvan but sad day for Nascar.
And that's why Watkins Glen International and Imola Circuit altered their layout respectively in 1992 and 1995 after 2 deaths respectively (J.D. McDuffie NASCAR 1991 and Ayrton Senna F1 1994)
I just noticed something at 15:35….the safety worker immediately throws JD’s helmet aside as soon as he got to the car. There’s no way he would have taken it off his head that quickly so I’m assuming the helmet may have come off in the accident. If you watch the replay you can see the helmet impact the windshield after the impact.
