Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 27, 1993 TAG: 9303270059
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DARLINGTON, S.C. LENGTH: Medium
Before Friday, no one had ever circled this 1.366-mile oval in less than 30 seconds. But when Dale Earnhardt took to the track under gray skies in practice, and mashed it to floor, the stopwatch stopped at 29.911 seconds, or 164.408 mph.
His unofficial lap not only shattered Sterling Marlin's 1992 track record of 163.067 mph (30.157 seconds), but served notice that the 30-second barrier would fall, too. Forty years ago, when they ran real stock production cars here at NASCAR's first superspeedway, it took more than 50 seconds to do a lap.
Rain arrived shortly before qualifying was to begin at 3 p.m. Qualifying for today's Mark III Vans 200 Grand National race was washed out as well.
A single round of Winston Cup qualifying was rescheduled for 8:30 a.m. today. And a 41-car Grand National field will line up in order of championship points for the 1 p.m. race, with points leader David Green on the pole and 1992 champion Joe Nemechek second.
Rain remains a threat to today's events. Forecasters are calling for a 70 percent chance of showers.
"We're not worried about it," Earnhardt said. "We'll start on the pole if we don't get to qualify."
As the current points leader, Earnhardt will have the pole if qualifying is rained out today.
\ UNSER JR. OUT OF IROC: Something else that won't happen if it rains today is the 60-lap International Race of Champions scheduled for 11 a.m. Al Unser Jr. has withdrawn from the race, citing his separated left shoulder from last month's accident in testing at Phoenix in an Indy car. That leaves an even half-dozen road racers and Indy car drivers - all Darlington neophytes - to challenge the five NASCAR drivers. Four-time Indy 500 winner Al Unser Sr. is among the Darlington rookies. ABC will show the tape-delayed race on May 23.
\ ROOKIE RULE WAIVED: The fact that Darlington rookies Unser and road racer Jack Baldwin will start on the front row of the IROC race flew in the face of a peculiar Darlington rule that stood to penalize the 1993 Winston Cup rookie class of Jeff Gordon, Kenny Wallace and Bobby Labonte. All three have plenty of Darlington experience in Grand National cars, but because they are Winston Cup rookies, track rules excluded them from qualifying. But on Friday morning, NASCAR waived the rule for all three drivers, citing their previous experience here. NASCAR had done the same thing last year for Jimmy Hensley.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB