Three-time Coca-Cola 600 winner Bobby Allison noted, “Charlotte really is a special place. I came here with a 1960 Chevy for the ’61 World 600. I came here and of course Charlotte was a major attraction for me. It was a nice-looking place. It was a good race track. I liked the design where you had to do different things to be able to drive around the race track. The quad-oval with three little short chutes on the front straightaway, and the back straightaway, all those things being a little bit different made it fun for me to race the race track.”
1996 Coca-Cola 600 winner Dale Jarrett said, “My memories go back to my dad racing there and me, Kyle Petty and Ricky and Larry Pearson in the infield literally having a great time. So it started out that I enjoyed that place from the very beginning.
“Probably my best memory was in 1996, winning the Coca-Cola 600. It was a race that was delayed by rain. It started late, ran late into the evening and finished just before midnight. It was a very special win. I had watched a lot of very special drivers win that race and to know it was the longest race on our circuit and one of the toughest race tracks that we raced on, to go there and win the 600-mile race ranks near the top for me.”
“When we used to run the 600, it was a six-hour race. It took all cotton-pickin’ day,” recalled two-time winner Richard Petty. “Whoever could build a car and keep it out of the fence, keep the motor from blowing up was there at the end of the race. It was sort of like running a 24-hour race; if you survived you were going to be pretty good. Now, it’s like a 600-mile sprint race and it gets over in three to four hours.”
“Charlotte Motor Speedway has given me so many good memories,” said Evernham, a former crew chief and team owner. “I have more actual trips to victory lane there than I have at any other race track, but I will tell you that the day Jeff Gordon and I won our first-ever Cup race, it was there on a two-tire call. We beat Rusty (Wallace) and that is something I will never forget. I only lived about two miles from the speedway and you never dream of winning. The next day when I drove past that place, it just sent chills up and down my spine.”
“The 600 was way ahead of its time,” said 1987 winner Kyle Petty. “In an era where people don’t want a sporting event — they want a spectacle — the Coca-Cola 600 has always been that. We can go back to ‘Humpy’ (Wheeler), we can go back to the very beginning with Bruton (Smith) and we can look at what Marcus (Smith) has done now. It’s amazing. When you look at the history of the sport, this was a huge event. We came over here so many times and my father could never win this race. I’ll never forget the day — I was in high school — when he finally won the 600. It was a huge event for our family.”
Following his dominant victory in the 59th running of the Coca-Cola 600, Busch said, “This one’s very special. I don’t think there’s anything that can top Homestead, just with the meaning of what the championship is, but the Coca-Cola 600 — I’ve dreamt of this race since I was a kid and being able to win this race.
“Always watching the All-Star Race and then the 600 the following weekend, and being able to come out here and now win the Coca-Cola 600 is just phenomenal. It is a little boy’s dream come true and man, I just want to say that I thank NASCAR, for one, for giving me a chance to come out here and have this opportunity to race for my dreams.”