Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 8, 1993 TAG: 9303080075
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
TEMPERS FLARE BETWEEN PETTY, OWNER OF CAR
Kyle Petty was as hot as the radiator water in his engine Sunday after the Pontiac 400 at Richmond International Raceway.It was not because of his fifth-place finish. It was not about the performance of his car.
It was, apparently, about the driving of his teammate, rookie Kenny Wallace.
This was a matter that would have been handled best behind closed doors. But it had been building inside Petty over the course of almost three hours of racing. And as soon as he saw car owner Felix Sabates, it all came gushing out.
"That guy is a no-driving [expletive]!" he shouted. "He was in my way all day. All day! You know who I mean."
Sabates took this much from his senior driver, then exploded himself. It was a quiet but highly animated dress-down, complete with pointing fingers.
Those nearby couldn't hear much of Sabates' tirade, but Petty at one point said, "Don't stick your finger in my face."
Off they marched toward Petty's hauler, with Petty's arm over his boss' shoulder. But all was not peachy yet. As they disappeared into the trailer, Sabates started again and cleared a counter of some radio equipment with one swipe.
Neither Petty nor Sabates directly identified Wallace as the focus of Petty's tirade.
Wallace wasn't around to defend himself. He was feeling ill after crashing with Bobby Hamilton after the checkered flag flew for race winner Davey Allison. The crash destroyed or at least heavily damaged Wallace's Pontiac.
Wallace walked away from the crash, but he was given oxygen at the infield care center. Track officials said he was taken to St. Mary's Hospital for treatment of possible smoke inhalation after feeling sick in the hauler.
Petty wasn't the only driver who was irritated with Wallace. Mark Martin, among others, indicated that Wallace's post-race crash confirmed the rookie-caliber driving he had done all afternoon.
"Kenny was terrible," said Martin, who finished seventh. "You can put that in the paper, too. You know, though, he was just racing today. But you really should wait until you have a fast car to race. He was racing when he should have been riding. He was just trying, but his car was terrible."
A short time later, Petty and Sabates emerged from their meeting, their mutual fury gone. They were both smiling.
"It wasn't nothing," Petty said. "He was just upset because Kenny crashed. We'll be all right."
"No big deal," Sabates said. "He just happened to get an attitude adjustment."
Meanwhile, of his own finish, Martin said: "We were better than seventh, but not good enough to get up there. I'm a little bit more disappointed than after our [similar] finishes at Daytona and Rockingham. We expected more. But we'll take what we can get."
\ GORDON MOVES UP: Rookie Jeff Gordon had another solid run to finish sixth in his Chevrolet Lumina. He's still leading the rookies and has moved into 10th in Winston Cup points.
"We've finished fifth on a superspeedway [at Daytona] and sixth today on a short track," he said. "The championship is definitely a goal of ours. It might not have been at the start of the season, but as well as things are going, I think we've got what it takes."
\ POINTS LEADER: Dale Jarrett leads the Winston Cup battle by a point over Dale Earnhardt after finishing fourth.
"Yeah, things are going well right now. We weren't the fastest car here today, but we made the most of it," he said. "We knew the first five or six races would be pretty critical to this team to find out whether we're championship caliber or not. Right now, after three races, we are."
Team owner Joe Gibbs, enjoying his first race after retiring as Washington Redskins football coach Friday, said he was "thrilled" about leading the points.
"Obviously, it's a long way from last year," he said. "I think we've got a good chemistry going with this team."
Earnhardt was in a position to retain the points lead until he received a 15-second penalty from NASCAR after his last pit stop on lap 349 for speeding on pit road. He had been running sixth. The penalty put him a lap down and he finished 10th.
"The gestapo got me," he said. "The pit road speed limit was 40 miles per hour today, and I was within a couple hundred rpms of where I should have been, give or take. They ought to give you a little leeway. We've had three good races this year, but all three should have been better."
\ EIGHTH WHEN IT COUNTED: Darrell Waltrip led 51 laps but finished eighth. His Chevy was the last car on the lead lap.
"We just lost some time here and there, but the car was awesome," Waltrip said.
In fact, Waltrip's pit stops were as mediocre as Allison's were outstanding. But he wasn't angry about it. His crew Sunday included two greenhorns who had never been over pit wall during a race.
"Our green flag stops were four seconds too slow, and you can't give up four seconds," he said. "We just got a little work to do."
\ NO MR. RICHMOND: Rick Mast may have been Mr. Richmond on Friday, but the outside pole winner was Mr. Unhappy on Sunday. His Ford engine blew up after only 68 laps. He was the second driver out of the race.
"I don't know, something broke in the valve springs or transmission or something," he said.
Mast had dropped out of the top 10 when the problem developed. "The car was a little bit too tight for the race," he said. "We would have adjusted it at the first pit stop, but we never got that far."
Jimmy Hensley was the next driver to drop out and was 34th.