Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 11, 1993 TAG: 9302110053
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
FINAL DAYTONA PRACTICE ENDS EXPLOSIVELY
A SEVEN-CAR pileup Wednesday sent one driver to the hospital and some crew chiefs to the garage to start working on backup cars for today's Twin 125 races.\ After two months of nearly wreck-free practice at Daytona International Speedway, all hell broke loose in a seven-car crash in the second turn Wednesday with only 10 minutes left in the final practice session before today's Twin 125 qualifying races.
The crash sent Jimmy Means to nearby Halifax Medical Center with a fractured left shoulder blade. He was admitted for an overnight stay after becoming pale and weak while standing, speedway spokesman Larry Balewski said.
The crash also forced most of the drivers involved to go to backup cars for today's races, including Darrell and Michael Waltrip, Bobby Labonte and Jimmy Spencer. Means also will need a backup car, if he can race. Eddie Bierschwale and Jim Sauter are trying to repair their crashed cars.
"If I didn't have a full-face helmet on, I wouldn't have any teeth right now," Darrell Waltrip said after plowing head-on into his brother's car during the crash.
Michael Waltrip added: "Kyle Petty and Jimmy Spencer were leading the draft. They moved up the track - Kyle and Jimmy did - and the next thing I know Spencer was sideways. I was trying to figure out which way to go. Then somebody ran into me from behind and we all wrecked. Three or four of them piled in there pretty good."
Spencer said he was hit in the right rear while pulling up on the track to avoid a car coming off pit road. "When a guy comes out of pit road and pulls right up in the middle of the race track - even a rookie knows enough not to do that," he said.
Spencer didn't identify that driver. Petty, who avoided the accident, said the driver entering the track was Means, but "let me stress this, he didn't cause the wreck - he was right where he was supposed to be."
Spencer seemed to go to great lengths to find someone to blame, because he approached Joe Ruttman, who wasn't even on the track at the time of the accident.
"I was standing in the garage in my street clothes and Jimmy Spencer confronted me about being the cause of the accident," Ruttman said. "I've caused some accidents in my day, but never when I wasn't on the track."
Today's twin 125-mile races, starting at 12:30 p.m., will set the field for Sunday's Daytona 500.
Petty and Dale Jarrett keep the front row.
The top 14 finishers in each race will fill positions 3-30 in the field, while positions 31-40 40 will be based on qualifying times.
The races should help confirm or dispute Ford's contention that NASCAR has given the Pontiacs and Chevrolets technical concessions that make their cars superior to the Thunderbirds. Because the Fords did not get the same concessions, their cars are not as well-balanced on the track this year Ford drivers, owners and officials have said.
So many in the Ford camp are expecting the Thunderbirds to get drummed in today's races by the Pontiacs and Chevys. The Thunderbirds "certainly don't have the kind of balance we had last year," Ford's top racing official, Michael Kranefuss, said Wednesday.
But Winston Cup Director Gary Nelson said NASCAR has treated all the manufacturers fairly and given each make the same concessions.
`I feel very comfortable that they've all got a little bit [of a concession] but it's equal," Nelson said. "I think one [manufacturer] pointing at the other one is a situation of the pot calling the kettle black."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING