Looking Back at Dale Earnhardt’s Only Road Course Win in Storied NASCAR Career

Jerry Bonkowski | 05/07/2025
Unknown date; Daytona Beach, FL, USA: FILE PHOTO; NASCAR Winston Cup Series driver Dale Earnhardt Sr (3) in the garage area at the Daytona International Speedway. Mandatory Credit: Imagn Images

Here’s one of NASCAR’s greatest oddities: Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Jimmie Johnson are the only drivers to win seven NASCAR Cup championships apiece. And while all three drivers have a combined 359 Cup wins, how many came on a road course?

Believe it or not, Petty never earned even one road course win among his record 200 career Cup wins.

As for Earnhardt and Johnson, they won only once each on a road course in their respective careers, both on the same track: Sonoma Raceway.

What is particularly unusual about Earnhardt is he actually was one of the better road course drivers of his era. But Sonoma in 1995 is the only road course win on his overall 76-win career ledger.

In fact, The Intimidator made a total of 47 career starts on a road course, with his greatest success at the now defunct Riverside International Raceway in California, where he made 20 starts and came away with 13 top 5 finishes — but alas, no wins.

As for Sonoma, in addition to his lone career road course win there in 1995, he also had four top 5 and nine top 10 finishes in 12 starts at the twisting track north of San Francisco.

Earnhardt won the 1995 race living up to his nickname of The Intimidator. Mark Martin led 64 of the first 70 laps of the 74-lap event.

With two laps to go, Martin got into some oil in Sonoma’s famed Carousel and Earnhardt took advantage of the mishap to take the lead and never yield it in the final two circuits around the track.

“I was as careful as I could be the last lap without giving Mark a chance to get back to me,” Earnhardt said. “I knew I was close to getting my first win on a road course and I didn’t want to blow it after trying for so long.”

As for the other road course on the NASCAR schedule that Earnhardt raced upon, Watkins Glen, he made 15 starts with zero wins, three top 5 and eight top 10 finishes.

Post Edited By: Srijan Mandal
Dale Earnhardt Riverside International Raceway Sonoma Raceway Watkins Glen

About the author

Jerry Bonkowski

Jerry Bonkowski

Jerry Bonkowski is a veteran sportswriter who has worked full-time for many of the top media outlets in the world, including USA Today (15 years), ESPN.com (4+ years), Yahoo Sports (4 1/2 years), NBCSports.com (8 years) and others. He has covered virtually every major professional and collegiate sport there is, including the Chicago Bulls' six NBA championships (including heavy focus on Michael Jordan), the Chicago Bears Super Bowl XX-winning season, the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs World Series championships, two of the Chicago Blackhawks' NHL titles, Tiger Woods' PGA Tour debut, as well as many years of beat coverage of the NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA for USA Today. But Jerry's most notable achievement has been covering motorsports, most notably NASCAR, IndyCar, NHRA drag racing and Formula One. He has had a passion for racing since he started going to watch drag races at the old U.S. 30 Dragstrip (otherwise known as "Where the Great Ones Run!") in Hobart, Indiana. Jerry has covered countless NASCAR, IndyCar and NHRA races and championship battles over the years. He's also the author of a book, "Trading Paint: 101 Great NASCAR Debates", published in 2010 (and he's hoping to soon get started on another book). Away from sports, Jerry was a fully sworn part-time police officer for 20 years, enjoys reading and music (especially "hair bands" from the 1980s and 1990s), as well as playing music on his electric keyboard, driving (fast, of course!), spending time with Cyndee his wife of nearly 40 years, the couple's three adult children and three grandchildren (with more to come!), and his three dogs -- including two German Shepherds and an Olde English Bulldog who thinks he's a German Shepherd.. Jerry still gets the same excitement of seeing his byline today as he did when he started in journalism as a 15-year-old high school student. He is looking forward to writing hundreds, if not thousands, of stories in the future for TheSportsRush.com, as well as interacting with readers.

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