Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 1, 1993 TAG: 9305010148
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: TALLADEGA, ALA. LENGTH: Medium
Earnhardt, with an assist from veteran Neil Bonnett in testing, clobbered the rest of the Winston Cup regulars with a lap of 192.355 mph in qualifying, winning the pole by almost two mph over Ford Thunderbird driver Jimmy Spencer.
Spencer took the outside pole at 190.571 mph, followed by Dale Jarrett in another Chevy at 190.560, Rick Wilson in the fastest Pontiac Grand Prix at 190.336, and Davey Allison's Ford at 190.257.
Also in the top 10 were surprising Joe Ruttman (190.223), Wally Dallenbach Jr. (190.166), Ken Schrader (190.151), Morgan Shepherd (190.128) and Bill Elliott (190.053).
"Finally, we come to a place where you can't overdrive the car in the corners," Earnhardt said after capturing his first pole position of 1993. "I didn't think we'd be a couple or three tenths [of a second] faster than the rest of the field, but I knew we could be as fast or faster than anybody."
Earnhardt actually was .466 seconds faster than anybody else. That is a whopping margin in NASCAR Winston Cup qualifying - largest since Ricky Rudd beat the rest of the field by about .6 of a second last year on the Sears Point road course.
In fact, the gap between Earnhardt and Spencer was larger than the difference of .368 seconds between Spencer and the 20th fastest driver, Bobby Labonte.
"Neil Bonnett helped a tremendous amount with testing," Earnhardt said. "He tested the car down here while I was fishing a little bit. So it looks like it worked out that I was fishing and Neil was testing. He got the car going fast."
Bonnett was forced to retire from active competition after a head injury in a crash at Darlington in 1990.
Earnhardt said there's no reason he shouldn't be able to keep that advantage during the race.
"We feel good about the race because we are going to race pretty much the same engine combination and chassis setup that we did in qualifying," he said. "You need to run a dominating race here to win. We are confident we can run one of those good, dominating races.
"I'd like to pull that train all day long."
With a purse of almost $1 million, the Winston 500 attracted a number of non-regulars and one of the best of those was rookie Ritchie Petty, 24, son of master engine builder Maurice Petty, who owns the car, and nephew of Richard Petty.
Petty was 33rd fastest in an unsponsored Ford Thunderbird at 185.920 and has a good chance at making the 40-car field after today's second round of qualifying at 10:30 a.m.
Petty was faster than Harry Gant and Terry Labonte. He was also quicker than his cousin Kyle Petty, who failed to complete a lap when his Pontiac engine failed.
Still, Ritchie Petty was somewhat disappointed because like many others, he was faster in practice.
"I was expecting to be a little quicker, but the race track slowed down," he said. "It was not too bad until I hit the tri-oval, and then the back end kicked out a little bit. It's just aggravating when you slow down like that."
Meanwhile, many other top drivers struggled Friday. Three-in-a-row winner Rusty Wallace was only 23rd fastest. "It's a typical deal for me here, just slow," he told Pontiac's Brian Hoagland.
Rudd was 25th. Jimmy Hensley was 28th in the late Alan Kulwicki's Ford. Rookie sensation Jeff Gordon was 29th. Geoff Bodine was 30th. Darrell Waltrip was 32nd. Gant was 34th, and Terry Labonte 35th.
Qualifying was delayed almost two hours by showers and was briefly interrupted again with 11 drivers left to run. It was finally completed just before dark.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB