Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 17, 1992 TAG: 9202170158
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. LENGTH: Long
CRASH PUTS FEAR INTO GIBBS
Losing a football game is one thing, but Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs had a "completely different feeling" when his driver, Dale Jarrett, was involved in a 14-car wreck in the Daytona 500 Sunday at Daytona International Speedway.The feeling was fear.
Was Jarrett hurt? That's all Gibbs wanted to know.
Jarrett, in fact, was unhurt.
But Gibbs saw his demolished car before he saw Jarrett. And one look at that car would give anyone pause for concern. It was crushed in the front and deeply T-boned in the right side door. It was junk.
"From my standpoint, I'm just real happy that Dale is not hurt," Gibbs said. "That thing scared me. The team part of racing means a lot, but you've got a guy driving the car and you worry about him."
Gibbs was in the pits for his first Daytona 500 as a car owner, so he never saw the backstretch crash on lap 92. It happened as Jarrett was contending in the lead group after clawing his way up from the 35th starting spot.
Said Jarrett: "I thought I had a hole picked out up toward the wall. It looked like they were all going toward the infield. Then all of a sudden the [No.] 22 car [driven by Sterling Marlin] slid back up the track. I hit him wide open. Then I got hit a bunch of times.
"It's a shame," said Jarrett. "We got ourselves up to the position we wanted to and the car was driving great."
Gibbs' first two races as a NASCAR Winston Cup car owner have ended with wrecks. Jarrett also crashed in his Twin 125 qualifying race Thursday.
"What's happened to us is just a part of racing," Gibbs said. "When we started with the Redskins, we had a tough time. [He lost his first five games]. You've just got to stick with it. We're in this for the long haul."
\ The only solace in a terrible day for Ricky Rudd was that his team was able to take his car home in one piece.
Rudd coasted into the garage on lap 80 with a broken engine. He finished 40th, the worst finish he's had in more than a year.
"Something let go in the motor and it started running hot," Rudd said. "I don't know if we cracked a cylinder head or blew a head gasket or what, but it lost all the water and finally let go."
Rudd said his car had a push before the engine broke, "but I think we could have worked it out before the end of the race."
\ While Davey Allison was dominating Sunday's race, leading 127 of the 200 laps, Dale Earnhardt was missing in action.
Earnhardt never led the race and was fighting a push when he was involved in the big backstretch crash.
"Cars started going every which way," Earnhardt said. "I really didn't see what happened.
"We've got darn trouble here the past few years," he said. "If it's not a wreck, it's a sea gull or a tire or something. It's just the Daytona blues, I reckon. When it started raining today [causing a six-lap caution period], I was hoping I'd see a rainbow somewhere, but I haven't seen one at Daytona yet."
Earnhardt finished ninth, "and that's not bad considering everything that happened," he said.
\ Rick Mast of Rockbridge Baths finished 13th after fighting a push all afternoon.
"At the beginning of the day, I told the crew that if we finished in the top 15, we should be happy," Mast said. "The car just pushed all day long. But we didn't run too bad. We fell back and got a lap down and after that, we ran pretty well."
\ In the aftermath of Saturday's crash-filled Goody's 300 for Grand National cars, Robert Huffman was scheduled to spend a second night in Halifax Medical Center so doctors could continue to monitor the facial burns he suffered in one of the wrecks.
Joe Nemechek, who had eye irritation after his fiery crash, and Jimmy Hensley, who cracked a bone in his right foot in a one-car wreck, have been released from the hospital.
\ Dick Trickle was one of the beneficiaries of Sunday's big wreck.
He managed to drive through it unscathed and went on to an unexpected fifth-place finish.
"I couldn't see a thing going into that mess," Trickle said. "I was running behind Rusty [Wallace] and I just decided to follow him. I figured that if there was a car in the way, he'd knock it out of the way. That's what happened and I made it through."
\ Joe Gibbs was not the only Washington Redskin in the pits here Sunday.
Mark Rypien, the most valuable player in the Redskins' Super Bowl victory last month, worked in Chad Little's pits, handing water to Little during pit stops.
"I'm having a blast," he said. "Believe me, I'm not going over the wall to service the car. When the cars come down pit road fast, I drop back."
\ Kyle Petty nearly collapsed after emerging from his Pontiac after finishing sixth. He was treated at the infield care center and released.
"I just got bad fumes," he said. "I couldn't breath."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING