In 1989, Rusty Wallace and Dale Earnhardt fought it out all the way to the bitter end, with Rustoleum winning his only Winston Cup by just 12 points....impressive when one considers there was no chase to artificially tighten things up. Rustoleum led the series with 6 wins, Big E had the most top 5's with 14, and Rusty had 20 top 10's. BOTH drivers led over 2000 laps, and Dale led all drivers with 2735 laps led.

The real standings can be found here:

http://www.racing-reference.info/yeardet/1989/W

Now, on to the FIA Cup:


Code:
001 Rusty Wallace..........287
002 Dale Earnhardt.........283
003 Darrell Waltrip........280
004 Mark Martin............253
005 Ken Schrader...........167
006 Bill Elliott...........165
007 Harry Gant.............161
008 Terry Labonte..........153
009 Geoff Bodine...........146
010 Davey Allison..........139
-------------------------------
011 Ricky Rudd.............134
012 Sterling Marlin........098
013 Alan Kulwicki..........097
014 Morgan Sheppard........092
015 Dick Trickle...........091
35 drivers scored a point this year, and 11 scored at least 100 points. Oh, and looks can be decieving. Rusty had clinched the week before the last race when Big E failed to score. Earnhardt did win the last race (at Atlanta) and Rusty didn't score. But still, 34 points separating the top 4, and 7 separating the top 3 sure looks cool.
Rusty wins his second consecutive FIA Cup in a shootout. His PPR was only 9.9, the lowest to date, but not the record. The group averaged 5.9 ppr. The group averaged starting 28.9 of the 29 races (Dick Trickle missed a race) and the avg start was 11.3, the avg finish was 13.9. All 29 race wins were in the top 15, 28 of those in the top 10 (Ricky Rudd won Infineon). Reliabilty is on an upward trend overall, with the avg RAF 23.3 (80.41%) and the avg DNF dropped to 5.7. The group avg'd finishing on the lead lap 12.1 of the 29 races 41.71% of the time.

The 1989 Bud Pole Award is shared by Mark Martin and Alan Kulwicki with 6 each

Congrats to Rusty Wallace, the 1989 Winston Cup and FIA Cup Champion