Which Year Did Pontiac Leave NASCAR And Why?
More than three-quarters of a century have passed since Bill France Sr. spearheaded the founding of the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing. While there were no Pontiacs to be found at NASCAR's inaugural 1948 race in Daytona, Florida, the manufacturer hit the circuit in 1950 and chalked up its first win on the stock car circuit less than a decade later. The legendary Cotton Owens was behind the wheel for Pontiac's first NASCAR win, piloting a '56 Chieftan into victory lane.
Pontiac would become a prominent presence on the NASCAR circuit over the ensuing decades, with legendary drivers like Fireball Roberts, David Pearson, Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Bobby Labonte, Tony Stewart, and, of course, Richard Petty among those who won races in builds from the GM brand. All in all, Pontiac would collect 154 wins on the circuit, with the last at Darlington Raceway in 2003. That race was a doozy, too, with Ricky Craven and his Pontiac Grand Prix taking the checkered flag over the Kurt Busch-driven Ford Taurus by a mere 0.002 seconds.
The unforgettable finish made Pontiac's last checkered flag one NASCAR fans would never forget, with Craven later stating, "It is hard to think that our win that day will be the last ever for Pontiac." That proved to be the case, however, as just a few months later Pontiac announced it would end its storied NASCAR tenure at the end of the '03 season.
Pontiac ended its storied Nascar residency a few years before it closed up shop forever
Ricky Craven's breathless 2003 win at Darlington was the only one Pontiac claimed that year. With Chevy and Ford proving untouchable on the track, it wasn't entirely surprising that Pontiac decided to throw in the towel. Even still, Pontiac's exit from the NASCAR circuit felt abrupt, as Grand Prixs from Joe Gibbs Racing had won the Winston Cup Championship as recently as 2000 and 2002 with Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart at the wheel respectively. As of this writing, Pontiac's 154 NASCAR premier series wins ranks them sixth all-time, behind Chevy, Ford, Dodge, Plymouth, and Toyota.
As we now know, Pontiac's on-track issues were foreshadowing bigger problems for the automaker in general. The company's troubles were further compounded by the '08 financial crisis, with General Motors announcing it would retire its Pontiac badge for good in 2009, with the last Pontiac rolling off the production line later that year. If Pontiac's NASCAR exit marked the end of the road for a one-time stock car racing powerhouse, the company's arguably long-coming '09 demise was the end of an era for one of America's most prominent automobile manufacturers, and an icon in the country's muscle car movement.
In the wake of GM announcing the end of Pontiac, Craven perhaps put it best, telling ESPN, "There are brand names in America that you just assume will always be around. I hoped one day it would make it back to the racetrack. Shouldn't we be making a bigger deal out of this?"