Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 5, 1995 TAG: 9506060082
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DOVER, DEL. LENGTH: Medium
In times of crisis, unlikely heroes often come to the fore. Kyle Petty did just that Sunday at Dover Downs International Speedway for an unexpected and badly needed victory.
Petty, who was nobody's favorite coming into the Miller Genuine Draft 500 and had little to show for his season, did the best job of adapting to Goodyear's tire crisis and beat Bobby Labonte by twenty-two-hundredths of a second.
Labonte nipped Ted Musgrave by a couple of feet at the finish line. Hut Stricklin was fourth and Dale Earnhardt was fifth. They were the only other drivers on the lead lap.
``If I had to point to one thing, we caught up with them on tires today,'' Petty said after the eighth victory of his career, but his first since June 13, 1993, at Pocono.
``It looked like it was going to be a typical day for me,'' Petty said. ``I qualified 37th. But I will say that this morning in practice, when we put on the Goodyear tires, we didn't lose as much time [on the track] as some of the other teams. We didn't change anything on the car.''
Sunday morning - one of the most unusual in NASCAR history - featured a special 30-minute practice session so the teams could adapt to the new Goodyear tires shipped overnight to replace those built for this race.
The original tires had too much tread and became too hot on the new concrete surface at this mile track. They blistered and chunked during practice Friday and during the Busch Grand National race Saturday.
So Goodyear scrapped them and brought in a conglomeration of leftover tires from past races - tires with less tread. Petty's team adapted to the change best.
On Sunday, the rubber crisis boiled down to a shortage of right-side tires, which are constructed a bit differently than left-side tires. Goodyear had 400 of the replacement right-side tires - all that were available - shipped in during the middle of the night. And the teams scrounged up another 100 at their shops and had them brought here.
Each team started the race with six sets. During the race, NASCAR gave the top 25 or so teams one more set from an inventory created by the tires from those teams that dropped out.
The tires did not become a major issue during the race itself because they turned out to be a good match for the track. In later runs, some teams were getting as many as 90 laps out of a set.
``All's well that ends well,'' said Leo Mehl, Goodyear's racing director.
Petty's chances also were greatly enhanced by a spectacular 18-car crash at the head of the front stretch on the second lap. The crash left John Andretti with a cut on his left ankle and Dale Jarrett with a cut on his nose, which also may have been broken.
The crash left Petty with a much improved position before he did anything on his own.
``We went from 37th to 20th ... ,'' he said. ``That helped a ton. All of a sudden they dropped the green flag and I hadn't passed a car and I was 20th.''
``It wasn't that we were that fast,'' Petty said. ``We ran the same speed all day.'' Some cars were quicker than Petty's ride at the beginning of long runs, but `'we came back on `em,'' he said.
And in the final laps, Labonte and Musgrave pressed Petty, but with only one groove through the corners, they had no way to get by as long as Petty didn't make a mistake.
``They were really better than I was at the end,'' Petty said. ``I was just leading.''
``It was hard to pass,'' Labonte said, ``but we had to make it exciting.''
Petty, who led 271 of 500 laps, needed oxygen in Victory Lane after the 4-hour, 10-minute marathon.
``I was just glad it was over,'' he said. ``It was a long day. My hands were beginning to go numb and my feet were beginning to go numb. I didn't have a lot left.
``It's been a long time where we've run where we've been competitive and I felt like we could win a race. I think it's been so long that we've run competitively that I was just tired. I was a little bit gassed.
``I don't think one bad race kills a season or one good race makes a season, but I think it does give us some momentum. And I think it gives us a lot of confidence.''
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB