THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 7, 1994 TAG: 9407070663
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
Although last weekend's Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway has marked the halfway point of the Winston Cup season in recent years, this no longer is the case.
With the addition of the Brickyard 400 on Aug. 6, the actual halfway point comes with this weekend's Slick 50 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway, the 16th race in a 31-race season.
For Harry Gant, however, the beginning of the end of his 22-year Winston Cup career began Saturday at Daytona. The 400, in which he finished 31st, two laps down, was his final appearance at the 2.5-mile superspeedway as a driver.
Gant won 18 races in his career. Now, in his final year, all he hopes for is one more.
``That would satisfy me totally,'' he said in a press conference at Daytona last weekend. ``It doesn't matter where. Just anywhere.''
Only three years ago, Gant won five races, including four in a row. He is far from that now, although ``I don't feel any different in the car now than I did 10 years ago.''
But the 54-year-old veteran's best finish this year is seventh at Charlotte, and even then he was a lap down at the end.
``We've been in some accidents this year and tore up a lot of cars,'' he said. ``It just gets your whole team behind. To win a race now is a lot harder than it was in 1991. the competition is a lot tougher, and there's a lot of new cars running good.''
While the new cars have made it tougher to qualify for races, the route to victory lane has been clogged by three drivers: Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace and Ernie Irvan. They have won 11 of the 15 races so far and it will surprise no one if they win just as many in the second half of the season. It may be only a matter of how they split them up.
All three took a moment last weekend to grade themselves on a 10 scale for the first half of the season.
Irvan, the leader in Winston Cup points who has three victories and top-10 finishes in all but two races, was the harshest self-critic.
``I think we're probably around an eight,'' he said. ``We've had a good season - a good first half - but I haven't done everything right and we've had a little motor trouble.''
Earnhardt, who is second in points, 88 behind Irvan, graded all three.
``We're probably about a nine,'' he said. ``A 10 would be perfect. And that's where Ernie is at. And Rusty is probably an eight or 8 1/2 because of losing points at a few races. But Ernie is sitting there in the `10' spot and we've got to get there with him.''
Wallace gave himself the highest grade, although he is third in points, 319 behind Irvan.
``I'm a 10 right now,'' he said. ``There's no doubt about it. I've won more races. And I probably could have very easily won seven races except for some bad breaks. I've had people tell me I'm stinkin' up the show, but I've only won three in a row.''
The most curious aspect of the dominance of the big three is that it exists in the midst of the greatest parity ever in Winston Cup racing. Less than one second separated the top 19 cars in Pepsi 400 qualifying.
``But not all 20 teams are as smart as each other,'' Wallace said. ``And not all 20 teams have crew members who can get along real well. And everybody doesn't have the same knowledge.''
Wallace discounted the factor of money - ``If you jam dollar bills down the carburetor, it won't make the car run faster'' - but not all teams can afford to take four cars, 10 engines and his entire crew to a test session, as he did last week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Irvan thinks the race has boiled down to a battle among himself, Earnhardt and Irvan.
``Right now, the way I look at it is that it's going to be hard for anybody to come from fourth,'' he said. ``The simple reason is that it would be hard for all three of us to have the kind of trouble it's going to take to catch us.''
The odd man out in this equation is Mark Martin, who sits fourth in the points chase, 328 behind Irvan.
A few races back, everyone was talking about the ``big four'' because of Martin's five wins last year. But Martin hasn't won yet this year and thus has fallen out of the equation.
That doesn't bother him in the least.
``We didn't win until August last year,'' he said. And then he won four in a row.
``All I can tell you is we were 12th in points last year at this time and now we're fourth,'' Martin said. ``So things are way better than they were a year ago. And it ain't over yet. Our time is coming.'' by CNB