ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 6, 1996 TAG: 9611060039
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: AUTO RACING NOTES
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
When Ron Hornaday Jr. won the 1996 NASCAR truck series championship Sunday in Las Vegas, Dale Earnhardt was on hand to spray champagne on him in Victory Lane.
Earnhardt was in great spirits, as if to say any championship is better than none at all - even if it's as a truck owner and not as a Winston Cup driver.
Earnhardt held the Winston Cup points lead from the Martinsville race on April 21 through the Pepsi 400 at Daytona on July 6. At the end of July, he was leading the DieHard 500 at Talladega when he suffered a broken shoulder and sternum in one of the worst crashes of his career. That wreck effectively ended his bid for a record eighth title.
In a wide-ranging interview at Phoenix, Earnhardt was asked if he should have stopped driving to recover after the Talladega crash.
``That's all over and done with,'' he said. ``You can't look back. You've got to look forward with what you're doing and make the right decisions. We shouldn't have been in the wreck at all. The wreck should have never happened if you want my opinion of it. But it did, so it's over and done with now.''
Earnhardt said the crash ``affected everything - practice, setup, qualifying - the whole thing.''
But Earnhardt said he wasn't blaming his fourth-place standing in the points race on the crash. ``It hampered things. It didn't help anything,'' he said. ``It just was a tough year. If we had survived some races like Bristol and Darlington and some races we crashed and got in trouble in, we'd have been OK.''
Earnhardt's car owner, Richard Childress, does blame the wreck.
``Let the record speak for itself from Talladega on in,'' Childress said. ``That's all I've got to say. You look at the record of where we were before and where we are afterward.
``First part of the season was jam up. Twenty points down going to Talladega. You're leading the race. And suddenly you're on your top.''
The big question for Earnhardt seems to be how he will adapt to a two-car team in 1997. Some observers feel Earnhardt is such an individualist, the two-car operation - with Mike Skinner as the second driver - eventually will strain his relationship with Childress.
To be sure, there seems to be a slight uneasiness between Childress and Earnhardt about the situation. When asked about ``his'' two-car team, Earnhardt replied, ``Who's going to have a two-car team next year? He's going to have a two-car team next year,'' he said, referring to Childress. ``I'm not going to. I'm driving the [No.]3 car. Ask him.
``But Skinner tested at Phoenix and gave us some ideas on some things. But still he's running faster than we are in practice. I think he's got the best motor,'' Earnhardt said, erupting in laughter. ``Now y'all heard me laugh after that now, didn't you?''
Childress was asked if he could make the two-car team work.
``I think so,'' he said. ``I think a lot of it's going to be how everybody working for me wants to make it work. But I'm going to make it work.
``It's working for the teams in front of us. You look at the teams who have won this year. We've got to make it work, I think. It's going to take some effort on everybody's part to make it work.''
THE OTHER POINTS RACES: Terry Labonte, who leads Jeff Gordon by 47 points in the Winston Cup championship standings, isn't the only driver who will be watching his back come Sunday in the season finale at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Ga.
Earnhardt is 35 points ahead of fifth-place Mark Martin.
Rusty Wallace is tucked in seventh place in points, but another bad outing like the one he had at Phoenix (40th place) could send Wallace plummeting. He is 19 points ahead of ninth-place Sterling Marlin and 99 in front of 10th-place Bobby Hamilton.
Hamilton's position is not all that secure, either. There could be a major shake-up from 10th through 15th places.
Hamilton is 17 points ahead of Ken Schrader and 79 in front of Bobby Labonte and Michael Waltrip, who are tied for 12th. Ted Musgrave is nine points behind Labonte and Waltrip, and 15th-place Jeff Burton is one point behind Musgrave.
If circumstances work entirely in his favor, Burton could jump from 15th to 10th.
HOT AND NOT: Hamilton has been one of the hottest drivers during the 1996 stretch run. He has risen from 16th after the Southern 500 on Sept.1 at Darlington Raceway to 10th and has his first Winston Cup victory (Phoenix on Oct.27) under his belt.
The coldest driver has been Schrader, who was seventh in points with five races to go and has faded to 11th.
The most consistent driver has been Martin. He has finished ninth or better in 14 consecutive races, moving from 11th to fifth in the points standings.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 linesby CNB