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1993 - Sixth Championship
If wins and laps lead were the only benchmark, Rusty Wallace's name would have been inscribed on the championship trophy. Rusty won 10 races and led 2,860 laps, the most laps led by a driver since Dale led 3,358 during his amazing 197 season. Wallace's laps led total almost doubled Dale's total of 1,475. Despite this disparity, Dale Earnhardt actually led more miles, 2,485 vs. 2,333, illustrating Walleces short-track acumen and Dale's superspeedway muscle. Of course, championships are determined by how you finish, not how dominant a car you bring to the track. Here, Dale enjoyed the advantage, posting 21 Top 10 finishes. More importantly, he suffered only two DNFs, neither of which dropped him out of the Top 30 in either race. While Rusty
Wallace was frequently up front during each race, Dale had a
stranglehold on the championship points race. Dale took the points spot from Rusty with a sixth-place showing at Sears Point in the season's 10th race, and never relinquished his advantage. Once in command, Dale tightened his grip with five wins in the next eight starts. Consecutive triumphs at Charlotte and Dover, another Daytona three races later and two more in a row at Pocono and Talladega boosted his lead to 234 points. Trailing by 309 points with nine races left, Wallace made a late surge, eventually whittling the deficit to 80 points. With Dale's 12-point loss to Wallace in 1989 still in mind, he did his part to lock Rusty Wallace out of the title chase by finishing in the Top 10 in seven of those final nine events. His 10th-place showing at Atlanta cemented his sixth title, leaving him just one championship shy of Richard Petty. Tragedies overshadowed the season 1993. Alan Kulwicki and Davey Allison died. Two great drivers and pleasant humans passed.
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Dale
Earnhardt took the checkerd flag six times in 1993, though that wasn't
the determining factor in his sixth Winston Cup championship.
