Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 6, 1993 TAG: 9309060113
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B6 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DARLINGTON, S.C. LENGTH: Medium
\ Neither rain nor gloom of night could keep Mark Martin from his appointed task of winning the Southern 500 on Sunday evening at Darlington Raceway - his fourth consecutive Winston Cup victory.
Martin led 178 of 351 laps in the rain-delayed, darkness-shortened race. He beat Brett Bodine to the finish line by 1.46 seconds. Rusty Wallace was third and Dale Earnhardt was fourth - the only other drivers on the lead lap.
The race actually was the Southern 479.4, as the final 16 laps on this 1.366-mile speedway were called because of darkness. (The actual race length at the full 367 laps is 501.3 miles.)
As Martin wheeled his Ford Thunderbird into victory lane, the setting sun peeked through the gray, rain-heavy clouds that hung over the track all day.
Martin became the sixth driver in the modern era of Winston Cup racing to win four in a row. He joins Bill Elliott (1992), Harry Gant (1991), Dale Earnhardt (1987), Darrell Waltrip (1981) and Cale Yarborough (1976). Richard Petty holds the all-time record with 10 in a row in 1967.
"I usually say a win is a win," Martin said. "But this is great. This is just a dream come true. Man, we're just on a roll."
Martin, ever the pragmatist, also said: "One of the best things about winning this race is getting a parking place out here" in Winner's Alley.
Rain delayed the scheduled 1 p.m. start by three hours, but what nature took away, the drivers tried to restore. They ran for 336 laps without a spin or a crash. There was a yellow flag to start the race because of the damp track and a yellow on lap 31 so teams could check their tires.
Then the drivers got down to the task of trying to get in the full race before darkness.
There was some exciting early racing between Ernie Irvan, driving his first race in the late Davey Allison's Ford Thunderbird, and Earnhardt. Near the halfway point, Earnhardt and Martin battled for a number of laps.
It looked as if the full race would be completed, but Irvan spun in the fourth turn on lap 336 while trying to enter the pits.
"Sorry, guys," Irvan told his new teammates on the radio. "I just got in [to the pit entrance] too late and spun in the dirt."
Irvan hit nothing and lost no positions, finishing fifth, one lap down.
Martin, in each of his three previous victories in the streak, had to overcome some hardship or obstacle. This race, however, was virtually problem-free for him.
The late caution period, however, was cause for some concern. Martin lost an eight-second lead and suddenly had a race on his hands.
"I was sad to see the yellow come out," he said, "but I knew we had an awful good shot."
Martin's crew finished his pit stop a second ahead of Bodine's crew. And as Martin pulled out of his pit stall, crew chief Steve Hmiel shouted on the radio: "Go! Go! Get right! Get right! You'll block him!" Martin accomplished that and was first out of the pits.
Just before restarting the race, NASCAR officials said that because of darkness, the checkered flag would fall in 10 laps - 16 laps short of a full race.
On the restart, Martin quickly jumped ahead.
Bodine's Ford Thunderbird, as it turned out, was not much of a threat because it wasn't as fast on fresh tires.
"We weren't good enough on fresh tires," Bodine said. "The longer the run, the closer we would get to the front. I chased him all day long and just could never get there."
Earnhardt, on that same late-race restart, launched one of his well-known charges toward the front. But it ended when he slid in turn 3 and tapped the wall on lap 346.
"Well, that 26 car [Bodine] was spewing water out," he said. "I got into the water a little bit and got into the wall. But I was just trying to go for it."
Although he lost a position to Wallace, Earnhardt still had another solid finish and maintains a 304-point lead over Wallace in the Winston Cup championship race.
Martin, meanwhile, heads to Saturday night's race in Richmond with a chance for five in a row - unprecedented in the modern era, which began in 1972. Richard Petty and Bobby Allison were the last to win five consecutive races. Both did it in 1971.
Even though they had no problems Sunday, Martin and his team were getting worried about the darkness. And Martin and Hmiel talked about it during that last caution period.
"They need to get this thing restarted," Martin said. "It's getting dark as hell."
Replied Hmiel: "I've been talking to them about it."
But, as NASCAR officials noted, Hmiel still had his sunglasses on.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB