Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 15, 1991 TAG: 9104150076
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: BRISTOL, TENN. LENGTH: Medium
They left the track after Sunday's 500-lap race with machines that were battered from door-to-door, nose-to-tail banging on wild double-file restarts that mixed slower cars with faster cars. Eighteen of the 33 cars that started the race were involved in spins or crashes, some two or three times.
Even Rusty Wallace, who got a big boost from the rules on his way to victory in the Valleydale Meats 500 at Bristol International Raceway, saw problems with the way the rules affected the race.
"I liked the rules because I won," Wallace said. "I know everybody who finished behind me didn't like the rules. If I were in somebody else's shoes, I probably wouldn't like them."
Given the amount of discontent, Wallace and other drivers believe NASCAR will reevaluate the rules and probably make some more changes.
`'It's wrong, but I'm sure everybody will learn from this and do the right thing," said Larry McReynolds, crew chief for Davey Allison.
Under the latest changes, announced last week by NASCAR, the cars were once again designated as odd or even depending on their starting positions.
During caution periods - there were 19 of them Sunday - odd-designated cars were allowed to pit and change tires first, followed on the next lap by even-designated cars.
And under a new version of double-file restarts, odd-designated cars lined up on the inside row while even-designated cars lined up on the outside row.
Both the pitting arrangements and the restarts came under fire.
"This is the pits," said Speed in a curious play on words. "You can't do this on a one-groove race track [such as Bristol]. The inside lane people just go and the outside lane people just get killed. All the guys on the outside lane have got to try and get in that bottom lane as quick as they can some way or another. They either have to bash somebody or pick a hole and get in it.
"It's almost like a Talladega deal: When you get out of the draft, you go to the back of the freight train. But on a short track, when you go to the back, you're a lap down. You can't afford that to happen, so guys get more aggressive and that's why you have all these cars torn up."
Speed finished 25th, 45 laps down, after crashing in turn four on lap 49.
"I was trying to find a hole on a restart and thought I had one," Speed said. "About that time, I got turned around."
Some competitors, particularly Wallace, were helped by the new style of odd-even, double-file restarts. Wallace was able to move from seventh to third when the race resumed after a late afternoon rain delay because five of the six cars in front of him were even-designated cars and he was an odd.
Morgan Shepherd was one driver who criticized the odd-even pitting arrangement.
"We just got ripped off, because they'd let the [odd] cars pit, and then they'd five the one-to-go before the [even] cars got a chance to pit. I mean, you could pit, but we were pitting on the backstretch, and there wasn't any time to work on the car." Shepherd finished 10th.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB