"He couldn't take that Jeff Gordon stuff": When Rusty Wallace relived his water bottle clash with Dale Earnhardt over their broken pact

Tensions boiled over in the Bristol night race in August 1995 when Rusty Wallace, bruised and blindsided, stormed down pit road and pegged Dale Earnhardt with a water bottle to the chest. Cameras caught the flight, the crowd's reaction, and the spark of chaos that followed. But what triggered it wasn't just another Bristol bump.

By 1995, Wallace and Earnhardt were two of the most feared names on the NASCAR grid. Wallace, the 1989 Winston Cup champion, had long been a short-track king, especially at Bristol Motor Speedway. Earnhardt, meanwhile, was defending his seventh title.

Despite their heated battles in years past, they'd built a mutual understanding, one that sometimes extended to taking down a common threat. The threat in 1995 was Jeff Gordon.

Jeff Gordon (R) with Dale Earnhardt Sr. at Daytona International Speedway in July 1993. Source: Getty

The 23-year-old California kid had exploded onto the Cup scene in 1993 and by '95 had emerged as the face of NASCAR's next generation. Gordon had the polish, the Hendrick Motorsports horsepower, and the raw speed to embarrass even the veterans. And that season, he was doing exactly that.

Speaking on the Dale Jr. Download in March 2019, Wallace recalled:

"Gordon has been kicking our a**. He's kicking your (Dale Jr.) dad's a**. He's kicking my a**. And your dad was sick of it and I was sick of it. And that particular day at Bristol, I qualified really well, I think like third, and your dad qualified, I think it was fifth. And Gordon was on the outside of us... your dad come up to me, 'Let's do this... let's just get this sucker out of way and check out and get gone'." (1:23 onwards)

The agreement between Rusty Wallace and Earnhardt was to rough Gordon up, clear him out of the way, and decide the night among themselves.

Ten laps into the race, they were coming off Turn 2, as Wallace got loose. Earnhardt, right behind him, didn't lift and sent him spinning into the wall, ruining his car in the 500-lap race. To Wallace, the hit felt like a betrayal.

The man who'd proposed the alliance had just dumped him, and Gordon wasn't even involved in the wreck. Earnhardt would go on to punt Terry Labonte on the final lap in Turn 4, but Labonte still managed to slide across the finish line for the win. Dale climbed out at the pumps, smiling. That's when Wallace approached him:

"I start walking down there and what I was thinking was, we had a deal, dude. What are you doing? What the hell are you doing?... And so I start walking down there and I see him and he's about 10 foot away from me. I say, 'Hey'. No response... I took that bottle and I slung that bottle to get a response.. and it hit him right in the center of the forehead." (3.03 onwards)

They exchanged words, but no punches were thrown, as security and crewmen had to step in.

"At that particular point, man, he could not take that Gordon stuff, that young kid coming and kicking our a**es. And he was. Jeff was just putting it on us, boy. And then we were sick of it," Rusty Wallace added. (4.10 onwards)

By the end of 1995, there was no denying it. Gordon had arrived.

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The 1995 NASCAR season that slipped away for Rusty Wallace

Dale Earnhardt Sr (3) leads Rusty Wallace (2) and Jeff Gordon (24) during the 1998 Daytona 500. Source: Imagn

While Dale Earnhardt salvaged a runner-up finish at Bristol and kept himself in the title hunt, Rusty Wallace managed to finish 21st and spent the second half of the season recovering. He'd already won two races that year (Richmond, Martinsville), but the crash cost him momentum.

He ended a respectable fifth in points, but off the pace for a title. Meanwhile, Earnhardt finished second to Jeff Gordon and never won another title after that. Rusty never returned to serious title contention either, though he remained a threat on short tracks through the early 2000s.

Between 1995 and 2001, Gordon won four championships and 56 Cup Series races. He and Earnhardt shared an intense, layered rivalry that bridged eras.

(L-R) Leonard Wood, Rusty Wallace, Ray Evernham, Mark Martin, Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon during the NHOF Class of 2021 ceremony. Source: Getty

For the old guard - Wallace, Earnhardt, Mark Martin - the mid-90s was a changing of the guard. Their fan bases stayed loyal, but the tracks were Gordon's playground now.

Rusty Wallace and Dale Earnhardt patched things up the next day, just like they always did. But Bristol 1995 wasn't just a spat. It was a symbolic moment of the baton beginning to pass.