Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 14, 1993 TAG: 9306140280
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LONG POND, PA. LENGTH: Long
His short-lived performance in the Champion 500 on Sunday at Pocono International Raceway was particularly disappointing.
After only four trips around this 2.5-mile tri-oval, Wallace coasted to the garage with a small stream of oil trailing from his Pontiac Grand Prix.
"All I can tell you is we put an engine in this morning and it ran fine, and then it burned a piston or something," Wallace said. "It just locked up and shut down. I won't know more until I get back to the shop and look at it."
The team changed engines Sunday morning because his other power plant was leaking oil in Saturday's final practice. The same thing also happened at Dover, Del., last weekend.
Even though Wallace had no opportunity to practice with the new engine, "the engine change went fine, everything was nice and clean," Wallace said. "And then it broke."
After his fourth victory of 1993 at Martinsville in late April, Wallace: flipped and crashed violently at the finish of the Winston 500 at Talladega, Ala.; broke a transmission at Sears Point, Calif.; crashed in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte; and was punted into the wall at Dover by Mark Martin.
Wallace's 39th-place finish at Pocono dropped him from second to fifth in the Winston Cup points standings. He now trails first-place Dale Earnhardt by 298 points.
\ ENGINES THAT COULDN'T: Wallace was one of many drivers to experience engine problems in the Champion 500.
Of the race's six caution periods, three were for oil on the track from blown engines.
The Ford Thunderbird driven by Bobby Hillin Jr. lasted only four laps before blowing an engine in the first turn.
Jimmy Horton made 16 laps before his engine broke. Dick Trickle lasted 17 laps. Ernie Irvan was gone after 50 laps, most of them completed with smoke trailing from his Chevrolet Lumina.
"We've got a cracked block or something," Irvan said. "This was the engine we had in the car when it crashed at Dover. We tested it on the dyno [dynamometer] and everything looked fine. But we had an oil leak yesterday. We thought we got it fixed."
After 85 laps among the leaders, Mark Martin's Ford engine broke.
"The water pump valve came off," he said. "I didn't see it overheat. But it burned the engine up."
A few feet away, sweat-streaked Darrell Waltrip prowled around the front of his Chevrolet Lumina, peering at his broken engine, which ended his day after 89 laps.
"Broke something, I don't know what," Waltrip said. "It happened under the yellow."
Waltrip said he wasn't surprised that so many engines broke.
"Everybody is just running so fast," he said. "Who's running seventh or eighth right now? He'll win." Of course, that didn't happen.
But other drivers with engine problems included Dale Jarrett, Brett Bodine and Terry Labonte. Before his engine blew, Labonte smacked the wall in turn 2 on lap 22, when his throttle stuck open in the floor mat.
\ BUT FOR THOSE CRASHES . . .: Jeff Gordon seems to be developing a pattern in his rookie season. He runs well - if he doesn't crash.
After starting fourth in Sunday's race, Gordon slammed into the wall in turn 3 on the 10th lap and emerged from his car shaking his fist at Hut Stricklin.
It appeared that Gordon and Stricklin made contact as Gordon tried to ease into a gap in a line of cars.
"I don't know what happened," Gordon said. "It was a little bit loose, but I was taking my time and trying to be very patient. Then I went down into the turn and somebody got underneath me and got into my left quarter panel. As far as I know, I was clear. I guess he got into me.
"I'm so mad right now because I can't even get into a race car and last 20 laps without getting into a wreck. We're just trying to be patient and run up front, but we're having trouble doing it right now."
Gordon also crashed early at Dover and wrecked in all three short-track races in April. But he also has five top-10 finishes.
\ MAST'S PROBLEMS: Rick Mast's biggest scare was his near-spin on the restart on lap 180, which happened when he was tapped by Earnhardt after Mast tagged Rick Wilson, who slowed in front of him.
"That knocked me back from about 11th to 16th," Mast said.
But that wasn't his biggest problem.
"We came in for a pit stop and a lug nut was stripped off the right rear tire," Mast said. "So we had to run around with a worn-out tire and we lost a lap. When we finally got it off, the car was fine. One of these days we'll run the whole race without a problem."
\ HENSLEY DISAPPOINTED: Jimmy Hensley was in the top 10 until the alternator on his Ford Thunderbird failed with about 50 of the 200 laps remaining. The Ridgeway driver dropped to 17th.
"We lost a lot of spots there before we figured out what was wrong," he said. "Everybody got away from us. I'm a little disappointed right now with where we finished. It wasn't great, but we're hanging in there."
\ A BETTER DAY: "At least we finished a race," Ricky Rudd said after his ninth-place finish. "We were OK, and then something happened and we started to get a skip in the motor at the end of the race and we couldn't race anybody then."
Still, Sunday was far better for Rudd than Friday and Saturday.
"We only got three or four laps of practice," the Chesapeake driver said. "We had all kinds of problems in practice and basically started the race without any practice."
by CNB