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The first half of the 1994 Winston Cup season the black cars dominated. Rusty Wallace, Dale Earnhardt and Ernie Irvan together had 11 wins in the season’s first 14 races.
Wallace was on a three-race winning streak heading into the Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway. The Missouri driver’s luck at the track has been short of disastrous.
The No. 2 car went for a flip during the 1993 Daytona 500 and wrecked early in the first race at Daytona in 1994.
A black car was on the pole with it being the No. 3 of Dale Earnhardt. His Richard Childress Racing team was coming off winning the 1993 championship and looking to repeat in 1994.
Although Earnhardt won the pole, it would be Ernie Irvan with the car to beat on the day by leading 86 laps in his No. 28 Robert Yates Racing machine. Irvan finished second to Sterling Marlin in the 1994 Daytona 500.
A driver who quietly stayed in the hunt all day was Jimmy Spencer, driving for owner Junior Johnson. Spencer accrued a best career finish of second at Talladega Superspeedway in May 1993.
His best finish up to the Pepsi 400 in the 1994 season was a fourth at Talladega in May.
Spencer started to size Irvan up for a move to the lead but couldn’t get by.
Once the white flag flew, Spencer ran the high line in turns one and two and got a run on Irvan.
Irvan went high to block and Spencer went low as the two were side-by-side going down the backstretch.
It remained the same coming out of turn four and Spencer barely edged ahead of Irvan at the line by a mere .008 seconds. The Pennsylvania native led one lap and it was the most important one.
Dale Earnhardt came home in third with Mark Martin and Ken Schrader rounding out the top five.
It was also the first race at Daytona since NASCAR lost Neil Bonnett during Speedweeks that February. Jeff Purvis drove the No. 51 car and ran inside the top ten before being involved in a crash 40 laps from the finish.
1994 Pepsi 400 Top-Ten