Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 27, 1993 TAG: 9302270146
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKINGHAM, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
RAIN DETERMINES TODAY'S LINEUP
ROCKINGHAM'S Grand National qualifying was washed out Friday, leaving 1992 points champion Joe Nemechek on the pole. One session of qualifying will be held today for Sunday's Winston Cup race.\ Persistent rain Friday washed out pole position qualifying at North Carolina Motor Speedway for Sunday's Goodwrench 500 Winston Cup race and eliminated all time trials for today's Goodwrench 200 Grand National race.A single round of Winston Cup qualifying was rescheduled for today at 11:15 a.m. Track activities begin at 8 a.m. with a 45-minute Grand National practice session, followed by Winston Cup practice.
Since Grand National qualifying has been canceled, the lineup of the 42-car field for today's 1 p.m. race has been determined by the 1992 final points standings, with champion Joe Nemechek starting on the pole.
The weather forecast for today and Sunday calls for partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid-40s.
\ YARBOROUGH, BOJANGLES TEAM UP: Cale Yarborough, who went to Daytona this month without sponsorship for the 1993 Winston Cup season, on Friday announced a three-year sponsorship agreement with the Bojangles fast-food restaurant chain for his Ford Thunderbird.
Just before the Daytona 500, the company agreed to sponsor Yarborough's car for that race. But Bojangles did not agree to a major, full-year sponsorship until recently because "they didn't know if they could swing that big a deal or not," Yarborough said.
The Daytona 500 performance of Yarborough's new driver, Derrike Cope, "didn't hurt anything," Yarborough said. Cope led three times for 30 laps - five times the number of laps led by all the other Ford drivers combined - before crashing late in the race.
"Obviously, I'm just tickled to death," Cope said Friday. Daytona, he said, gave him the opportunity to "showcase what we could do with the car; unfortunately, we had some problems at the end."
Cope said he had "pretty much resigned himself to going to Daytona without a ride" until Yarborough called him 13 days before the race and offered him the job.
The unfortunate thing, Cope said, was that he displaced Jimmy Hensley.
"That's the thing that bothers me the most," he said. "I was friendly with Jimmy and his family, and this seems to have hurt that. There's definitely an estrangement. But that's just the nature of the beast."
\ PURSE BOOSTED: North Carolina Motor Speedway officials have increased the purse for Sunday's Goodwrench 500 by 22 percent, posting total awards of $811,954 for the 500-mile event.
Officials also have added $45,650 to the purse of today's Goodwrench 200 Grand National race - an increase of 35 percent, speedway spokesman Chris Browning said. The total purse for today's race is $198,278, he said.
\ LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON: P.J. Jones, the oldest son of racing legend Parnelli Jones, will make his Winston Cup debut driving Harry Melling's Ford Thunderbird in the Motorcraft 500 on March 14 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Jones, 23, was a winner in the recent 24 Hours of Daytona sports car race and has raced midgets and sprint cars. He tested a Melling car in January at Daytona, where his father drove a stock car in the early 1960s.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING