Elliott Takes Sunday Drive, Wins NASCAR Title : Though Wallace Finishes First at Atlanta, Georgia Driver Is Overall Champion

HAMPTON, Ga. — Bill Elliott was so far ahead before the race, he could afford to lag way behind Sunday in the Atlanta Journal 500 at Atlanta International Raceway.

Elliott, who needed to finish at least 18th to win his first NASCAR Winston Cup championship, took it easy in the season finale, finishing 11th.

That was more than good enough to hold off Rusty Wallace, who had pressured Elliott during the second half of the season by winning 4 of the final 5 races, including Sunday’s.

“We knew coming in what we had to do,” Elliott said. “Basically, we didn’t race anybody all day long.”

Elliott, 33, from Dawsonville, Ga., became the first Ford driver to win the NASCAR title since David Pearson in 1969.

Wallace, driving a Pontiac Grand Prix, led 166 of 328 laps, including the final 12.

“I won the pole, led the most laps in the race, won the race and lapped him,” Wallace said. “There wasn’t really anything else I could do. We killed ‘em all day long, but Bill just ran along all day long and we just came up a little bit short.”

Elliott, who won $400,000 along with the title, started 29th in the 42-car field and clinched the championship in the last of 29 races this season.

Elliott and Wallace each finished the season with 6 victories.

The final season point margin was 24--4,488 to 4,464--which was the third closest since NASCAR revised to the scoring system in 1979.

Wallace beat Davey Allison to the finish line by 3.3 seconds, with Mike Alexander third, Ricky Rudd fourth and Darrell Waltrip fifth.

The winner, who earned $87,575, averaged 129.024 m.p.h. in the race that was slowed by 9 caution flags for a total of 55 laps.

Wallace, who won the pole with a track record lap of 179.499 m.p.h., had said he would try to lead every lap to further pressure Elliott.

But Wallace, of St. Louis, led only the first 4 laps before giving way to Alexander.

Still, Wallace, the season runner-up who came into the race 79 points behind Elliott, had to overcome adversity to win.

Wallace was running third on lap 52 when a tire problem forced him to stop. He came out of the pits just ahead of leader Allison and, as a caution flag came out, barely lost a drag race with Allison to the finish line, losing a lap to the leaders.

That put him behind Elliott on the track.

After the caution, Wallace managed to regain the lead lap, then had to stay out front until the next caution flag, on lap 85, before beginning to work his way back into the lead.

Wallace moved past Elliott easily and was in 10th place by lap 129. After a quick pit stop during a caution period on lap 140, he regained the lead on lap 147.

Meanwhile, Elliott slowly but steadily moved up, getting into the top 10 by the midway point in the race. He was eighth by lap 208 when a caution period brought the leaders in for gas and tires.

Elliott made two slow stops during that caution, falling all the way to 18th before the green flag waved again on lap 217.

He made three more pit stops during the next caution.