DARLINGTON, S.C. (Sept. 1, 1985)

Bill Elliott topped off an historic afternoon by taking the tense Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, tucking away the "Winston Million" before a sellout crowd at the legendary speed arena.

Elliott dodged a pair of close mishaps, took the lead 44 laps from the finish and held off a determined Cale Yarborough to etch his name in motorsports history. His victory pushed his money earnings to a record $1,857,253, tied him with David Pearson for the most superspeedway wins in a single season, and left him with a 206-point bulge in the point race.

"Thank the good Lord for looking out for me today," said Elliott. "A lot of things happened that were unexpected. But I kept my cool. I raced the track today and let the others race each other."

Yarborough finished 0.6 seconds behind Elliott when the checkered flag fell. The fact that Yarborough was in a challenging position was a miracle in itself. In the 323rd lap, smoke erupted from beneath his Ford. He pitted on the backstretch, where crew chief Waddell Wilson diagnosed the problem as a blown power steering line -- rather than a blown engine.

"There was so much smoke I thought we had lost an engine," said Yarborough. "But it was only the power steering. After that I had the power to run with Bill, but it was like driving a freight train the rest of the race."

Third place went to Geoff Bodine with Neil Bonnett fourth and Ron Bouchard fifth. Dale Earnhardt led most of the way in his RCR Enterprises Chevrolet. But on lap 318, the Kannapolis, N.C., driver got into the wall in turn 2 and slid down the backstretch. Elliott missed the spinning Earnhardt by inches. Earnhardt returned to the track but engine failure put him out in the closing stages.

"I was just racing and the rear end broke loose," explained Earnhardt. "When I brushed the wall, it bent the nose and closed up the grille. Then it finally blew. That's ol' Darlington."Harry Gant ran well in the middle stages, leading four times for 84 laps. But the Taylorsville, N.C., driver dropped off the pace in the final 100 miles when his Chevrolet dropped a cylinder. "We lost a cylinder and then it blew up," said Gant. "We were moving away from 'em until that happened." Gant dropped out on lap 336.

Darrell Waltrip suffered through an agonizing afternoon and wound up 17th, 12 laps off the pace. He retained second place in the point standings, but fell some 206 points behind. "We lost some points and we've got a long road to haul," said Waltrip. "But our team has been here before. We know how the pressure gets in the final run. Bill hasn't gone through that yet. We can catch up in the points race, but we're going to have to have some help. Bill will have to have some trouble along the way."