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The 1992 season-finale race at Atlanta Motor Speedway is one of the greatest and most notable races in NASCAR history.

This race marked the final race in the career of Richard Petty, while it was the debut race for future series champion Jeff Gordon.

The real story about the 1992 Hooters 500 was the battle for the series championship.

Davey Allison, Bill Elliott, Alan Kulwicki, Kyle Petty, Harry Gant and Mark Martin all came into the season's final event with a mathematical possibility of winning the title.

Through the course of the event championship hopefuls began to fall out of contention. Petty and Martin both had engine issues, ruining their chances, while Gant fought an ill-handling race car and was never a factor.

Allison, who came into the event as the points leader, got caught up in an accident that ended his day early.

That left the championship down to two men, Kulwicki and Elliott.

The two fought at the front of the pack as they ran first and second, swapping the lead among themselves for most of the second half of the event.

When the checkered flag waved, Elliott won the race, while Kulwicki finished second.

However, thanks to leading one more lap than Elliott, Kulwicki earned the five-point bonus for leading the most laps and went on to win the championship by a mere 10 points.

The 10-point margin was the closest in NASCAR history until 2004, when NASCAR adopted its current championship format.