Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 6, 1990 TAG: 9007060240
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANK VEHORN LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
Sacks, a stand-in driver and technical adviser for the movie "Days of Thunder," won the pole position for Saturday's Pepsi 400 with a speed of 195.533 mph.
"We stirred up a little thunder of our own," said Sacks, whose Hendrick Motorsports team built and maintained most of the cars for the movie, in which Tom Cruise plays the role of driver Cole Trickle.
Sacks' pole victory was almost as predictable as Trickle winning the Daytona 500 in the final scenes of the movie.
Sacks had established his Chevrolet as the fastest in practice on Wednesday, and the luck of the draw allowed him to make his qualifying run early, when the 2.5-mile speedway surface was cool and fast.
Mark Martin, in a Ford, and Dale Earnhardt, in a Chevrolet, also had early draws and posted the second- and third-fastest speeds, respectively.
They were followed by Bill Elliott, Darrell Waltrip, Ken Schrader and Richard Petty, who had his best qualifying performance since November 1986.
"I really had hoped to go a little faster, and I couldn't be sure that I had the pole until Schrader made his run," Sacks said.
Schrader, who won the Daytona 500 pole in February, was next-to-last in the qualifying session that determined the top 20 starting positions.
"Qualifying late hurt me, but I don't think it cost me the pole," Schrader said. "I never saw anything in practice that made me think my car was as fast as the 18 [Sacks'] or the 3 [Earnhardt's].
Martin, the Pepsi 400 pole winner last year, and Earnhardt didn't make any excuses, either.
"I didn't think I would do as well as I did," Martin said. "I hadn't run that well in practice, and I really thought I would be fifth. But I got a good draw, and going early really helped a lot."
Earnhardt also qualified better than he had practiced.
"I gave it everything I had, but it wasn't good enough," he said. "But I feel really good about the race. The car is running and handling good."
Sacks, who finished second to Earnhardt in May at Talladega, Ala., is looking forward to Saturday's run.
"My only Winston Cup victory came in this race in 1985, and now I've won my first pole position here," Sacks said.
"I'd like to go out and lead every lap, but I expect that I'll have to race Earnhardt and maybe a few others pretty hard."
Sacks worked through the winter and most of the spring with the crew filming "Days of Thunder." He raced at Atlanta with the name "Cole Trickle" on his car and uniform, and he carried movie cameras in his car in the Phoenix race in November and in a 125-mile qualifying race at Daytona in February.
"Most of the work that I did with the movie was offering technical advice, to make it as realistic as possible, and adding a little to the script," Sacks said.
"But the best thing about the movie for me was the opportunity to become associated with Hendrick Motorsports. It got my foot in the door."
When the movie was completed, Rick Hendrick, who also fields cars for Schrader, Waltrip and Rudd, agreed to add Sacks to his roster.
"It started out that I would run in only a few races. But we got sponsorship [from Ultra-Slim Fast], and now we are negotiating a three-year contract," Sacks said.
The final round of qualifying is scheduled for today.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB