I apologize that I'm late to post this, but April 1st marked 25 years since Alan Kulwicki's passing in a plane crash in 1993.
Alan won the Winston Cup Championship in 1992 and was the last owner-driver to do so. The first race of any kind I attended was the 1992 Hooters 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway where he won that championship (and one of the greatest races in Nascar history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Hooters_500 ). I was fortunate to see his "Underbird" do its last "Polish victory lap".
Alan was an engineer, quiet and introverted, and was notoriously stubborn and cheap. All of these characteristics I can relate to. Gone but not forgotten!