It would be stinging Denny Hamlin, still. But he is far from the first to carry that burden of losing a championship by a whisker. Kenny Wallace, one of NASCAR’s most outspoken veterans, recently revisited his own heartbreak from 1991, when he watched a title slip through his fingers at Martinsville Speedway.
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After Hamlin shared a post about his reflective trip to his hometown track, Wallace shared, stating that it was as raw as it was relatable. Recalling how he fell short of the Busch Grand National Championship to Bobby Labonte during that Martinsville race, Wallace could only empathize with the Joe Gibbs Racing driver.
“I can relate,” said Wallace. “In 1991, I lost the Busch Grand National Championship on the very last race at Martinsville to Bobby Labonte.” The veteran added that the defeat hit him like a ton of bricks, one of those moments that burrows deep into a competitor’s psyche.
“It crushed me. I took sports therapy. There, I admit it…,” added Wallace.
In the 1991 Busch Nationals, both Wallace and Labonte entered that season’s final race under immense pressure. They had each bagged their first wins earlier in the year and carried the added weight of family legacies.
Kenny was under the glare as the younger brother of 1989 Cup champion Rusty Wallace, and Bobby was following in the footsteps of his brother Terry, who had captured the 1984 Winston Cup title.
Labonte began the race from the pole and kept his nose clean, finishing fifth in the Winston Classic. Wallace, meanwhile, ran into brake trouble before the 50-lap mark of the 200-lap contest. The mechanical issue doomed his day and effectively handed Labonte the title.
When the checkered flag waved, Labonte’s 4,264 points were 74 clear of Wallace’s tally. That was a big margin of victory for a driver who had spent the season’s final weeks chasing while remaining within striking distance.
Looking back, Wallace admitted the loss haunted him for years, though therapy eventually helped dull the pain. And when he saw Hamlin’s recent Instagram post from Amelia County, where Hamlin first fell in love with racing, Wallace recognized the same healing process at work.
“Most likely, Denny got some great advice from sports therapy,” Wallace said before describing how, when a person has recurring dreams, the only way to stop them is to go to the origin. The origin means the place where the dreams happen. For Hamlin, that meant going home to remember why he first climbed behind the wheel.
Wallace is yet to fully overcome that pain. “It destroyed me,” he confessed. “To this day, it bothers me.”
Yet even as he carried the scars, Wallace found strength. He believes Hamlin will, too. “He’s not done,” Wallace insisted. “Hamlin will heal up, and he’ll be back.”
