Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 7, 1993 TAG: 9306070068
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DOVER, DEL. LENGTH: Long
Earnhardt, backing off at the end, finished .22 seconds ahead of Dale Jarrett as Chevrolet Luminas took the top two spots in the NASCAR Winston Cup race. Davey Allison was third in a Ford Thunderbird, followed by Mark Martin in another Ford and Ken Schrader in a Chevy. Rick Mast finished sixth - the last car on the lead lap - for his best finish of the year.
"If you run the whole race here, you've done something," said Earnhardt, rubbing his neck, after winning his second race in a row and Crash after crash after crash at Dover. B3 Finish in Scoreboard. B4 third race of the year. "When you run 500 miles as hard as we ran today, you've really put in a day's work."
It was just as tough for the many drivers who crashed long before the 500 miles were done.
There were 14 yellow flags in the race, far exceeding the record of nine for the Bud 500 and tying the overall Monster Mile record.
Thirty eight cars started. Before it was over four hours and 44 minutes later, 23 had crashed or spun.
"There are so many torn-up cars running around out there that this race looks like a junkyard on wheels," crew chief Tim Brewer said. Brewer's driver, Bobby Labonte, got hit on lap 212 in the biggest crash of the day, a six-car melee on the backstretch.
"A lot of guys were spinning or clipping each other," Earnhardt said. "I think they were a little anxious sometimes."
Said Wally Dallenbach's crew chief, Howard Comstock: "It's 500 laps of sheer terror here."
Comstock's driver finished 12th, nine laps down, without ever getting out of shape.
"Really, I'm surprised and disappointed that so much beating and banging had to go on," said car owner Bobby Allison, who knew something about beating and banging when he was a driver.
The most significant of the many crashes came on lap 426, when Mark Martin slid into Rusty Wallace while trying to pass him in turn 4 to take second place.
Martin shoved Wallace right into the wall. And before he came to a stop, Wallace was hit - in the driver's side - by Jimmy Hensley and Geoff Bodine.
"He just drove right up the race track and into the wall I went," Wallace said. "I don't know what happened. I'm sure he wouldn't do that on purpose."
"I got loose," Martin said. "I about lost it and tangled with him."
The crash prevented Wallace from having a strong finish and although he is still second in the battle for the Winston Cup championship, he dropped from 129 to 209 points behind Earnhardt.
All the crashes made Earnhardt's two flat tires seem like a small hurdle to overcome.
Earnhardt was running so hard, he apparently twice tore a right front tire, causing them to deflate.
Although Earnhardt said debris cut the tires, car owner Richard Childress said the rubber separated from too much punishment, causing them to deflate. Both times, it separated where the surface meets the sidewall, and both times it separated after 70 laps of racing.
"The car was a little tight, and if you punished the tires real hard, they would separate. We had two tires go flat. So we adjusted the car and just took it a little easier. Once we adjusted the car, it went faster."
The first flat tire came on lap 69, after Earnhardt had led 36 laps. Earnhardt lost a lap, but made it up during a caution period shortly after the 100-mile mark. And by lap 138, he was back in the lead.
The second flat came around lap 280, again the right front tire.
Earnhardt later went a lap down, but this time the problem came at the beginning of a sequence of green flag pit stops, "so it was just like stopping for a regular pit stop," he said. And he quickly made up the lost lap when the other leaders made their routine stops.
So by lap 320, Earnhardt was back in the lead again, but nurturing his tires.
"That was our biggest problem all day," he said. "We were working the tires awful hard. Making up laps is tough. You had to have a good car to do it. And we did."
By the end, he had led 226 of 500 laps - including 153 of the last 154 - for his 56th career victory.
Earnhardt gave up the lead to Martin on lap 437, but regained it the next lap and never was passed after that.
"He got up under me pretty tight and got me a little loose and got around me," Earnhardt said. "Then I got him loose and got back by him.
"For the last 15 or so laps, I started really cruising. I started pacing myself on those tires. We were just biding our time and watching Jarrett. I had a lot left and I wasn't using it. If he had got to me, I would have used it and I felt like I could have beat him."
But the team was still quite concerned about that right front tire. By the time the checkered flag fell, it had been on the car 70 laps.
"I was trying to be easy on it and was taking my time," Earnhardt told his crew as he circled the one-mile speedway after taking the checkered flag.
"Good job," Childress replied. "Me and [crew chief] Andy [Petree] were both holding our breath the last 10 laps."
"Me, too," said Earnhardt.
Five hundred laps at the Monster Mile can be a Sunday afternoon cruise if you're running well, or sheer hell if you aren't.
And nowhere was this demonstrated more vividly than in the back reaches of the garage area, where the haulers of Mast and rookie Kenny Wallace sat next to each other.
Mast was positively chipper, chomping on a bologna and mustard sandwich as he described his race. His chassis was a bit off, he said, and "then we had some kind of ignition problem and . . . it would miss and sputter in the corners."
Fifteen feet away, Wallace sat with his back against his hauler, recovering from the long race, which for him had been nothing short of an ordeal.
Wallace finished 13th, 10 laps down, and had staggered into his hauler, nearly collapsing from dizziness and a sick feeling.
"That race is too long," he said.
Mast glanced over at the rookie, took a bite of his sandwich, and said, "I remember those days."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB