Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 24, 1990 TAG: 9005240167
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY KING SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: CONCORD, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
"I'll teach Schrader for talking about our slow pit stops in The Winston [on Sunday]," a conniving Hendrick said while plastering a sign to the back of his driver's Lumina.
The sign read: "1991 Season Driver Wanted. Must Be Aggressive. Brave! $1,000,000 Salary, 75 purse. Apply with Crew Chief."
Hendrick's needle, albeit in jest, stuck Schrader.
"Hey, Rick was just kidding," Schrader said. "I'm signed through 1992."
By late Wednesday afternoon, when first-round qualifying for Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 was history, Schrader probably could have asked the boss for an extended contract.
In a run described as "phenomenal" by his competition, Schrader blistered the 1.5-mile layout at an event-record 173.963 mph to win the pole.
"That's as fast as I could go," said Schrader, who shut off his car after taking only one of two qualifying laps.
"I got down into [turn] one and she started coming around a little bit and I kept legging it. When I came off one, I said to myself, `That was fast.' I knew if I got anything between [turns] three and four that I wasn't going to take another another lap because I scared the hell out of myself that time.
"I took a deep breath and I was still holding it when I came back around. I didn't want to go through that again. I shut it down because I didn't want any more."
Schrader's sizzling lap was much too hot for the rest.
"Man, that was a great lap Schrader turned. I couldn't beat that," said Mark Martin, whose Ford was second at 173.221 mph.
"His [Schrader's] time really surprised me," confessed Alan Kulwicki, third at 173.116 in a Ford.
Schrader's effort startled most of the garage, especially since his car had blown an engine only three hours before the start of time trials.
"We broke a crankshaft," Schrader said. "We missed the final practice and we did a lot of educated guessing after that. We watched the others and tried to guess what the track would be like when we went out.
"It didn't make any difference, really. We were going to go out and run as fast as we could. It was going to be fast enough or not fast enough."
Schrader thanked Dale Earnhardt for taking care of his mental frame of mind before climbing in the car.
"About 10 minutes before qualifying started, Richard Childress [Earnhardt's car owner] asked me into their truck," Schrader said, smiling.
"Earnhardt was in there watching a Clint Eastwood movie trying to get pumped up. I don't know which movie it was, but he [Eastwood] was mean.
"I walked out of the truck and thanked Richard. It must have pumped me up real good."
The 34-year-old Missouri driver's bank account got pumped, too, by a nifty $42,500 for winning the pole.
"Pretty good day's work," Schrader said.
Earnhardt, whose Lumina was dominant in winning The Winston all-star race Sunday, was only 12th-fastest Wednesday at 171.418, more than 2 mph off the pole speed.
"The car just didn't run fast enough," Earnhardt said. "It just wouldn't run down the straightaway and I was a little off in [turns] one and two.
"But we'll adjust on it. Six-hundred miles is a long way to go, so we'll see what happens Sunday. I think we'll have a good day."
Ernie Irvan's Oldsmobile and Brett Bodine's Buick were fourth and fifth, respectively. Davey Allison, Bill Elliott, upstart Bobby Hamilton, Rusty Wallace and rookie Rob Moroso rounded out the top 10.
Among Wednesday's disappointments were usual qualifying terror Geoff Bodine (13th) and defending 600 champion Darrell Waltrip (17th).
Waltrip, though, said he didn't expect much with his Lumina running on stickier tires.
"We've run our best laps on tires that have two or three laps on them," Waltrip said.
"You had to qualify on new ones today because NASCAR makes you. I think the car is going to race great."
\ LUGNUTS: Schrader's pole was his second of the season and eighth of his career. . . . His speed eclipsed Davey Allison's previous event record of 173.594 mph.
by CNB