{"id":420553,"date":"2026-01-20T03:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/420553\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T03:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:00:09","slug":"when-harry-gant-owned-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/420553\/","title":{"rendered":"When Harry Gant Owned September"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harry Gant made his NASCAR Cup Series debut at the ridiculously old age of 33. Like fellow short-track stars Butch Lindley and Jack Ingram, he had been content to rule other kingdoms, leaving the busyness and big bucks of the Cup Series to others. He preferred his work-a-day world of raising cattle and houses\u2014he was an accomplished carpenter\u2014during the week and dominating bullrings on the weekend.<\/p>\n

But Cup eventually came calling, and Gant slipped his toes into the big leagues in 1973. He raced there sporadically for several years before going full time in 1979. Even then, he was a step below stardom. Amazingly, he finished second 10 times before finally winning at Martinsville Speedway in April 1982.<\/p>\n

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None of that set the stage for September 1991, the month that defined Gant\u2019s career and, to no small extent, solidified the foundation for his eventual election to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Gant, Kurt Busch, and the late Ray Hendrick are scheduled to be inducted into the hall in a ceremony in Charlotte, North Carolina, Friday night.<\/p>\n

Entering September 1991, Gant had won 12 Cup races. He had 11 wins entering that season then scored at Talladega in May. That was his only victory that year as the calendar turned to September, which opened with the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.<\/p>\n

Gant had had only two wins over the previous five seasons entering 1991, and there was no reason to think he might be a dominant force at Darlington or any other races as autumn approached. He was 10th in points when the Southern 500 green flag fell.<\/p>\n

\"harryRacingOne\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Harry Gant celebrates his win in the Heinz Southern 500 NASCAR Cup race at Darlington Raceway.<\/p>\n

It became a September to remember. Gant stormed through the series, winning four-straight races\u2014at Darlington, Richmond, Dover, and Martinsville\u2014in the same car and with the same engine.<\/p>\n

He was 51. Suddenly, he was Mr. September.<\/p>\n

Already a fan favorite because of his successful short-track background, his Everyman persona, and his movie-star good looks, Gant multiplied his number of admirers with his September splash. Even fans of other drivers got on board as Gant raced up and down the East Coast in the green and white Skoal Bandit.<\/p>\n

It all began, oddly enough, on the old asphalt of Darlington, where even some of NASCAR\u2019s giants had struggled through the years. Gant raced into first place 151 laps into the long afternoon, saw top rival Davey Allison lose his victory chance because of throttle problems and finished almost 11 seconds in front of second-place Ernie Irvan.<\/p>\n

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On to Richmond. Car owner Leo Jackson decided to stick with the Oldsmobile that had won at Darlington. Gant lurked throughout the race and was running third with less than 100 laps remaining when Ernie Irvan and Alan Kulwicki crashed while racing for first. Gant couldn\u2019t avoid the wreck and spun his car but remained near the front. He surged past Davey Allison to lead the final 19 laps.<\/p>\n

The next week at Dover, Gant received a major gift in his pursuit of a third-straight win. A lap-70 wreck on the tough one mile damaged the victory chances of more than a dozen cars. After other contenders fell by the wayside with various ills, Gant won the race by a full lap, an oddity in NASCAR\u2019s modern era.<\/p>\n

\"martinsvilleRacingOne\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Harry Gant went on to win at Martinsville.<\/p>\n

Three-straight wins. Gant clearly was on a roll. People even looked up the longest win streak of all time with the idea that Gant might challenge it. They closed those books with the discovery that Richard Petty had won 10 in a row in 1967.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Gant\u2019s accomplishments continued a strong storyline as the tour moved on to Martinsville, a track where Gant had scored two wins but none since 1985. Martinsville\u2019s close-contact racing would produce Gant\u2019s biggest challenge of the streak as his car was damaged late in the race after contact from Rusty Wallace. <\/p>\n

With the Oldsmobile\u2019s front end showing the scars of the wreck, Gant charged from outside the top 10 to retake the lead, held first for the final 47 laps and beat Brett Bodine to the finish line by a second.<\/p>\n

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Four weeks. Four races. Four wins. Gant was relatively speechless in his post-race press conference, telling reporters he had run out of things to say.<\/p>\n

The streak ended the next week at North Wilkesboro. Gant won the pole and ran well again, but brake-line issues blunted his run late in the race. He led 350 laps but finished second to Dale Earnhardt, who passed Gant for the lead with nine laps remaining. Gant\u2019s attempt to become the first driver to win five straight since 1971 ended 1.47 seconds short.<\/p>\n

The September surge lifted Gant from 10th in the seasonal point standings to fourth at the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Thirty-five years later, Gant, now 86, carries that September streak with him into the Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

\"Lettermark\"<\/p>\n

Mike Hembree has covered auto racing for numerous media outlets, including USA Today, NASCAR Scene, NBC Sports, The Greenville News and the SPEED Channel. He has been roaming garage areas and pit roads for decades (although the persistent rumor that he covered the first Indianapolis 500 is not true). Winner of numerous motorsports and other media awards, he also has covered virtually every other major sport. He lives near Gaffney, South Carolina and can be convinced to attend Bruce Springsteen concerts if you have tickets.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harry Gant made his NASCAR Cup Series debut at the ridiculously old age of 33. Like fellow short-track…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,782,176275,784,1642,634,176274,82],"class_list":["post-420553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-00d835c1-090c-423a-8e0f-e9123fe07680","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-locale-us","tag-nascar","tag-shorttitle-when-harry-gant-owned-september","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}