THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 31, 1996 TAG: 9608310726
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DARLINGTON, S.C. LENGTH: 66 lines
Dale Jarrett won the first battle of his Winston Million weekend Friday at Darlington Raceway, while Ward Burton was thankful to walk away from the most spectacular qualifying crash this year.
Jarrett will be the first to take the green flag in the Southern 500 Sunday after winning the pole with a lap of 170.934 miles per hour in his Robert Yates-owned Ford Thunderbird.
``Incredible,'' Jarrett said. ``Deep down inside, there's just something that tells me we are going to make a run at it on Sunday afternoon.''
This was only Jarrett's second career pole. His other came in the 1995 Daytona 500. But Yates gave Jarrett the best engine from his best-of-the-sport engine shop. And Jarrett had enough experience at this difficult 1.366-mile oval to not overdo it.
Jarrett said his crew chief, Todd Parrott, ``told me a lot of people were driving it in really hard in turn one and seemed to be washing up the race track. When you have an engine like I've got, the key is to be in the throttle as soon as you can in the turn. I let the car roll through the corner and I carried a lot of speed through there and picked the throttle up early.
``Turns three and four were pretty slick and we saw some cars have some trouble up there, so I probably left half a tenth (of a second) up there by barely squeezing out of the throttle. I wanted to make sure I completed the lap, and it turned out to be just enough.''
Whatever Jarrett did to make it through safely, Burton failed to do.
Burton lost control of his Pontiac Grand Prix in the middle of turn four and smashed hard into the outside wall, back-end first. The car hopped into the air briefly and began spinning down the front straight as fuel poured from the fuel filler hose, which was split by the impact of the crash.
The gasoline burst into flames with the car still spinning. When it came to a stop, Burton scrambled out as Ricky Rudd hopped the wall and rushed to help him. Geoff Bodine and others arrived moments later with fire extinguishers. The crowd in the main grandstand erupted in a huge cheer of relief.
``I thought the crash might have knocked him out,'' Rudd said. ``I was the only one with a fire suit on who knew what was going on. I knew if he wasn't knocked out, he would be all right.''
``I just got a little loose,'' said Burton, who was uninjured. ``I was trying to tame the throttle, and I didn't make it around there. I star-gazed pretty good. One thing I don't want to do is burn, so I got out of that thing fast. I'll go one day, but I don't want to burn.''
Jeff Gordon, who made his run after Jarrett, tried his best for pole number six of 1996, but was 17/100ths of a second slower, posting a speed of 170.833 miles per hour in his Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
``Any time Robert Yates gets on TV and says that's the best motor he's ever put in a car, you know it's going to be a guided missile out there,'' Gordon said.
Bodine was third-fastest in a Ford at 170.472 mph, followed by Ken Schrader in a Chevy at 170.218 mph and Sterling Marlin in a Chevy at 170.118 mph.
Also in the top 10 were Mark Martin in a Ford at 169.983 mph, Chad Little in a Chevy at 169.977 mph, Terry Labonte in a Chevy at 169.918 mph, Rick Mast in the fastest Pontiac Grand Prix at 169.713 mph and Hut Stricklin in a Ford at 169.672 mph.
At the other end of the lineup, Kyle Petty was 38th fastest and on the bubble for today's second round of time trials, which begins at 11:30 a.m. Petty was followed by Randy MacDonald, Jeff Burton, Jay Sauter, Robby Faggart, Ricky Craven, Ward Burton, Joe Nemechek (who also hit the wall during qualifying and failed to finish his lap), and Robert Pressley, who was unable to make a qualifying lap Friday. by CNB