Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 12, 1990 TAG: 9005120123
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY KING
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Well, think again, Rusty.
Wallace, the leader in a flock of lame ducks, has continued to fly south since the first engine cranked in February. Wallace already is buried in the title chase, 286 points behind Dale Earnhardt, after a series of quack-quack runs.
While the No. 27 Pontiac continues to waddle on the track, Wallace and teammates Barry Dodson (crew chief), Harold Elliott (engine builder) and Jimmy Makar (chassis specialist) have been busy completing deals for next season.
Wallace already has said he's leaving Beadle to start a new operation in 1991, reportedly with Indy-car owner Roger Penske. Makar is expected to go with Wallace.
Elliott already has announced he will give up racing - at least on a full-time, at-the-track basis - at the end of the current season.
Dodson, meanwhile, is rumored to be joining a new team that will include engine builder Lou LaRosa, who is working for Kenny Bernstein's Buick operation.
Despite watching his team crumble a year after winning the Winston Cup title, Beadle said he remains optimistic about fielding a team in 1990.
In addition to a driver and key crewmen, Beadle will have to find a new sponsor. Wallace will take Beadle's present sponsor, Miller Genuine Draft, with him.
"Right now, things still look pretty good," Beadle said Sunday at Talladega, Ala. "I think I have a sponsor lined up, and there will be some drivers out there looking. I'm not worried."
He should be.
With Wallace & Co. playing out the string in 1990, don't be surprised if Earnhardt runs away with his fourth national championship.
Quite simply, Earnhardt and his Richard Childress team are the best in the business.
Earnhardt used his experience to hold off a stronger Greg Sacks at Talladega and scored his third victory in nine races this season. Earnhardt also would have won the season-opening Daytona 500 if not for a last-lap flat tire.
"Ifs don't count," said Earnhardt. "It wasn't the Daytona 499, it was the Daytona 500.
"We've forgotten all about Daytona now."
Through nine of 29 scheduled races, Earnhardt already has banked $468,600 and holds a 90-point lead over Morgan Shepherd, a long shot in the title chase. At his present pace, Earnhardt would finish with nine victories and a record $2.5 million-plus in earnings if he wins the title.
"This is starting out to be a great season," Childress said in a classic understatement.
Earnhardt may have a solid grip on the Winston Cup division, but things aren't as clear-cut on NASCAR's Busch Grand National tour.
Heading into today's stop at Nazareth, Pa., Jimmy Hensley of Horsepasture and Bobby Labonte are tied for the points lead. Chuck Bown of Ridgeway is third, five points back.
Bown and his red-hot Hensley Racing team will be looking for their third consecutive victory today. Bown has won the past two Saturdays, at Lanier, Ga., and South Boston. The last GN driver to win three straight was Larry Pearson in 1987.
Ricky Rudd said he wasn't too surprised to see the Chevrolets of Earnhardt, Sacks and Ken Schrader thoroughly dominate at Talladega. The trio lapped most of the field by the halfway mark and combined to lead almost 450 miles of the 500-mile race.
"It's sort of frustrating," said Rudd, whose Chevy was one of numerous cars lapped early.
"Those three were just a lot faster than the rest of us. They don't blow by you on the straightaways anywhere else like they did [at Talladega].
"Some of these teams evidently have the motor deal figured out [with the 15/16ths-inch carburetor restrictor plate] or the aerodynamics figured out. It sure makes it more of a mismatched deal."
\ Quote of the week: "You've got to have a size-2 hat and a size-12 foot." - Veteran driver Buddy Baker, on running at Talladega Superspeedway.
\ LUGNUTS: Bown tops the GN tour in laps led (324) and has completed 1,679 of a possible 1,714 laps (97.7 percent). . . . How dominant was Earnhardt in the season's first two majors - the Daytona 500 and Winston 500? He led for a combined 688 miles in the two 500-mile races. . . . Doyle Ford, of Nashville, Tenn., will replace retired Harold Kinder as Winston Cup flagman. Ford has been Kinder's backup man in the flagstand since 1978. . . . Morgan Shepherd's eighth-place run at Talladega enabled him to remain the only driver who has finished in the top 10 in all nine starts this season. . . . Jeff Burton scored a career-best second-place finish on his hometown track at South Boston. Rick Mast's fifth-place run at South Boston marked his best effort of the GN season to date. . . . Another 5,000-seat tower, to be located near the finish line on the front straightaway, is under construction at Martinsville Speedway.
by CNB