Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 25, 1993 TAG: 9309250122
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Ernie Irvan won the pole Friday in Allison's old Ford Thunderbird at 92.583 mph, while Geoff Bodine put Kulwicki's old Ford on the outside pole with a speed of 92.362 mph.
It was Irvan's third pole of 1993, but his first since taking over the car driven by Allison until his death on July 13 after a helicopter crash at Talladega Superspeedway.
"I'm sure everybody in the garage area will probably look at that [front row] and think exactly the same thing," Irvan said. "That would be a heck of a picture. They were both great race car drivers and they had great cars. This proves it."
"You can't help but look at that No. 28 car and think of Davey. Even I do when I see it on television."
Bodine, who contracted to buy Kulwicki's team after the 1992 Winston Cup champion died in an April 1 plane crash near Bristol, Tenn., was ecstatic about his run.
"I'm just so pumped," he said. "We're still learning and we're running good. We all know things are going to get better as time goes on, but right now we're doing a lot better than we should be."
Sterling Marlin, after blowing an engine late in practice that created havoc for the early qualifiers, grabbed the third starting spot in another Ford with a lap of 91.824.
Rusty Wallace was fourth fastest in a Pontiac Grand Prix at 91.793, while Kyle Petty, who was fastest in practice, took the fifth spot in another Pontiac at 91.722.
It was not a good day to qualify early. Marlin's blown engine made a mess of turns three and four and sent lap speeds plummeting from what they were in practice.
Mark Martin, the first driver to qualify, finished 26th. "It's just a shame that we'll pit on the back straight because we got a bad draw and somebody blew an engine at the end of practice," Martin said.
Terry Labonte was next out, and he was the slowest of the 35 entrants. Jeff Gordon, third on the track, was 31st fastest.
"The track was in such bad shape when I went out that I don't even want to talk about it," Gordon said.
Gordon said he lost six-tenths of a second because of the oily track. Had he not lost that time, he would have qualified third.
"The track was just too slick in three and four to make a fast lap," said Ricky Rudd, who was sixth out and qualified 20th. "It was bad during the last practice, but I guess they didn't want to delay qualifying. I don't know why."
"I was outta control," Bill Elliott said. Elliott was fifth out, and finished 30th.
"The track was pitiful," Darrell Waltrip said. "The guys going out later had such an advantage. You just couldn't run the car hard going into turn three."
Waltrip, to be sure, made the best of the bad situation, qualifying sixth at 91.602 in the fastest Chevrolet Lumina even though he was the seventh driver out.
Also in the top 10 were Dale Earnhardt at 91.474, Jimmy Hensley (substituting for the injured Rick Wilson in Richard Petty's Pontiac) at 91.465, rookie Bobby Labonte at 91.341 and Todd Bodine at 91.262.
"I have to say a lot of guys had trouble in qualifying because of the race track, but I guess that's why they have a random drawing for qualifying," Irvan said.
Irvan said there was about five minutes left in practice when Marlin's engine blew. "And NASCAR went around and gave everybody the opportunity for 10 or 15 more laps of practice to clean the track off. Very few opted to do it. The first guys out [for qualifying] should have been the ones out there to clean it off. "
Other drivers who may want to requalify during a second round of time trials at 12:30 p.m. today include Harry Gant (23rd), Michael Waltrip (27th) and Ted Musgrave (33rd).
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB