Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 8, 1993 TAG: 9303080050
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
CONFIDENCE RETURNS WITH ALLISON'S WIN AT RICHMOND
Davey Allison took the path of least resistance to Victory Lane on Sunday at Richmond International Raceway."We just didn't do anything unnecessary," he said after winning the Pontiac 400 for his 19th career victory. "We didn't get in too big of a hurry. And all of a sudden, here we are, the race is over and we are in Victory Lane."
It was that kind of race for the record crowd of more than 70,000, too, with two hours, 47 minutes of round and round and not much action.
Allison took command shortly after the halfway point and led the final 42 laps to win by 4.38 seconds over Rusty Wallace. There were only three passes for the lead during the final half of the race, and all of those were during pit stops.
But the day was beautiful. The grandstands were packed. It could have been worse.
And for Allison, who has had a rocky start this season, nothing could have been better.
"You just can't believe what was going through my mind and the pressure that these guys have had on them after the first two races," Allison said while celebrating Ford's first victory of the year with his Thunderbird crew.
He finished 28th in the Daytona 500 and was 14th at Rockingham. For a high-powered team like Allison's, that is missing in action.
"Considering what happened in the first two races of this year, I'm numb right now," crew chief Larry McReynolds said.
"This is exactly what we needed," Allison said. "This is a big confidence-builder for our entire race team."
Alan Kulwicki finished third in a Ford and Dale Jarrett was fourth in a Chevrolet Lumina. Both had solid runs, considering neither led a lap. Second-place finisher Wallace also never led in his Pontiac Grand Prix.
"It was a good day at the office," said Wallace, summing up the sentiments of Kulwicki and Jarrett as well.
Pole sitter Ken Schrader led the first seven laps and then disappeared into the pack. His Chevy hit the south wall between turns one and two on lap 196 in the only crash of the race.
Kyle Petty led the most laps - 168 - but his powerful Pontiac Grand Prix faded at the end and he finished fifth.
"The car picked up a push I guess at about the 300-lap mark," Petty said. "The set of tires we put on pushed a little bit, then the next set pushed."
So on the final stop with 52 laps to go, Petty's team gambled and only mounted two new tires, gaining about five or six seconds in the pits. But the other leaders all took four tires, and soon they ran Petty down.
"It didn't help and it didn't hurt either," Petty said. "That's about where we were going to end up. . . . "
Allison led 155 laps of the 400-lap race. He started 14th, but had moved to third by the 60th lap and was second by the 120th lap.
He took command on lap 244 during a caution period when he beat leader Petty out of the pits. Allison's crew was fast on that stop and fast all afternoon.
"I think we had a couple of stops in the 18-second bracket and the last stop was in the 17s," McReynolds said.
"The guys in the pit crew just had a tremendous day," Allison said. "We kicked some tail on pit road. We felt like our race car and the number two car [Wallace] and the number 42 car [Petty] all were pretty equal in the longer runs. I felt like if we could get the lead, whether by passing on the race track or by pit stops, we could stay out in the lead.
"And then, all of a sudden, we got the lead by pit stops."
Allison said Sunday's race was"my favorite kind of a race - no yellow flags and all green-flag racing all day long. It pits car against car and pit crew against pit crew," he said.
Actually, there were three yellows, but two were for smoke and oil. The other was for Schrader's incident.
There was, however a big crash. But it occurred almost a full minute after Allison took the checkered flag.
Approaching the finish line, Kenny Wallace apparently tagged Bobby Hamilton. Both slammed into the outside wall on the front stretch as people poured over the pit lane wall to get to victory lane.
It was the most dramatic moment of the day.
Hamilton said he told his team, "Well, we didn't run great, but we were the most spectacular thing that happened all day."
Hamilton wasn't too upset, considering the circumstances. He and Wallace weren't racing. They weren't even on the same lap.
Hamilton said that after he came to a stop against the outside wall, "the fans were going wild."
"Who hit me??" he asked one fan.
"I don't know what happened," the fan told him, "but it was sure a barn-burning way to finish."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING