Harry Melling formally took ownership of the team on December 1, 1981, and ran the No. 9 car primarily with Bill Elliott from 1982 onward. The partnership developed steadily: Elliott won his first race with the team at Riverside International Raceway in the 1983 season finale and finished third in points. Coors joined as sponsor for 1984, and the team responded with three wins and another third-place points finish.
The 1985 season was the defining year for both team and driver. Elliott set a career-high 11 poles and 11 wins, seven of them from the pole position. More significantly, he claimed the Winston Million — a one-million-dollar bonus introduced that year by R.J. Reynolds and Winston for any driver who won three of the four Crown Jewel events in a single season. Elliott won the Daytona 500, the Winston 500, and the Southern 500 at Darlington, earning the nickname "Million Dollar Bill." Despite failing to secure the title that year — losing the championship by 101 points to Darrell Waltrip despite winning 11 races to Waltrip's three — Elliott's achievement was the foundation for a loyal following that would make him NASCAR's Most Popular Driver for years.
In 1987, Elliott set the fastest qualifying lap in NASCAR history at Talladega Superspeedway for the Winston 500, turning a speed of 212.809 mph. NASCAR introduced mandatory restrictor plates the following season to limit speeds at superspeedways, making that record permanent. The team finished second in points that year behind Dale Earnhardt.
The 1988 season brought the championship Melling Racing had narrowly missed in 1985. Elliott and the team won six races for the second consecutive year and compiled 22 top-ten finishes, clinching the Winston Cup title by just 24 points over Rusty Wallace, who also won six races that season.
The team's competitive peak did not last. In 1989, Elliott suffered an injury early in the season and Jody Ridley substituted during his recovery; the defending champions slipped to sixth in points. A single victory at Dover followed in 1990, with a fourth-place finish in the standings. By 1991, sponsorship shifted from Coors to Coors Light and the team's iconic red livery changed to blue. Elliott won the Pepsi 400 at Daytona — the only race he ever won in a non-red Melling car — but finished 11th in points. At the end of 1991 Elliott and Coors departed, ending the most successful chapter of the team's history. All 34 of Melling Racing's Winston Cup victories came with Bill Elliott at the wheel.
Without a major sponsorship or an anchor driver, Melling Racing struggled through the 1990s. Phil Parsons drove the first two races of 1992 and recorded a top-ten at the Daytona 500, but the team ran a part-time schedule for several seasons thereafter with a revolving cast of drivers including Chad Little, Greg Sacks, P.J. Jones, and Rich Bickle.
A period of relative stability arrived in 1995 when Lake Speed signed with the team under Spam sponsorship, completing a full schedule and recording two top-ten finishes. A return to full-time racing came in 1998 when Cartoon Network sponsored the team and Jerry Nadeau joined as driver. Nadeau produced a fifth-place finish at Watkins Glen in 1999 — the team's first top-five result since 1991 — before leaving to replace Ernie Irvan at MB2 Motorsports.
Stacy Compton drove for the team in 2000 and 2001. In 2001, Melling yielded the No. 9 to Evernham Motorsports, which was fielding Bill Elliott in a comeback. Elliott specifically requested the number out of respect for the team that had defined his career, and Melling Racing switched to the No. 92, running Dodge Intrepids with engine support from Evernham. Compton qualified on the outside pole at the 2001 Daytona 500 alongside Elliott, who won the pole. The team ran intermittently through 2002, failing to qualify for its final attempt at Talladega. Harry Melling had died of a heart attack midway through the 1999 season, and his son Mark had overseen the team's final years. Melling Racing closed at the end of the 2002 season and sold its equipment to Arnold Motorsports in 2003.
Melling Racing's record of 34 Winston Cup victories, all achieved with a single driver, underlines the depth of the Elliott-Melling partnership. The team's 1985 Winston Million campaign and the 1987 Talladega qualifying record remain landmark moments in NASCAR history. The 1988 championship is the defining achievement of both Harry Melling's ownership career and Bill Elliott's driving career, and it came at a time when restrictor-plate superspeedway racing was still unrestricted — a combination that will not be repeated.