Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 27, 1993 TAG: 9309270250
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
"Here," Petty said, offering Irvan the IV. "He needs it more than I do."
"So I had to steal Kyle's IV," Irvan said, recalling the moment. "They ran one bottle through me, put my shorts on and said, `Go play basketball.' "
The care center was a busy place after the 3 1/2-hour race.
"All the PR people were in there after the race, shouting for oxygen for their drivers," said Danielle Randall, publicist for Kenny Wallace's team.
She managed to get some for Wallace, but there were more requests than oxygen bottles.
Bobby Hillin's crew had sent word even before the race was over after he told them the 91-degree heat was doing him in.
Others who suffered in the race included Jimmy Spencer, who needed oxygen after finishing third, and outside pole sitter Geoff Bodine, whose leg was aching after his drive to 14th place.
Petty went to the care center after getting out of his car on lap 423 and turning it over to Jimmy Hensley. Hensley had been driving Richard Petty's Pontiac Grand Prix for the injured Rick Wilson, but was involved in the five-car crash on lap three and dropped out after 292 laps.
Petty had radioed his crew on lap 381 during a caution period and said, "Get somebody with some oxygen and get some over here and let me breathe some."
The team managed to do that, and he reportedly took it with him on the track for about three laps. Petty and Hensley took the car to a 10th-place finish.
During that same caution period, Brett Bodine was relieved by Dick Trickle. And Trickle brought Bodine's car home in sixth, only one lap down.
But it took some doing to make that driver change.
Bodine, driving with a broken right arm, suddenly announced on lap 318: "I'm tired." He said later it was the heat, and not his arm, that did him in.
Bodine was ready to get out, but Trickle wasn't ready to get in. With more than half the race over, Trickle apparently didn't expect to get the relief call and wasn't in his driver's uniform.
He dressed and arrived back in the pit with a lap to go in the caution period, but two crewmen were talking on the radio at the same time and Brett didn't hear the word to come to the pits.
Bodine had to drive more than 50 additional laps before the change could be made after the next yellow flag on lap 381.
Dale Earnhardt, meanwhile, had more heat than he wanted.
It started around lap 210, when he noticed from the driver's seat that smoke was pouring from behind the cab on his team's hauler.
"The generator on our truck is on fire!" he shouted on the radio.
Black smoke briefly poured from the truck and rose over the infield, but firemen quickly arrived on the scene. It wasn't clear whether there was actually a fire.
Earnhardt fell out of the race after 440 laps with a broken rear end and lost 99 more points of his Winston Cup championship lead to Rusty Wallace.
\ TROUBLE FOR MAST: For the first 220 laps, Rick Mast kept his Ford Thunderbird in the top 10. But then trouble hit.
"Every time, it's something new," he said. "We were kinda coolin' along, trying to keep the leaders close, just takin' it easy, saving my brakes. But a rachet in the rear end broke and it started pulling on one wheel. Every week, something new."
Mast's team repaired the rear end and he returned to complete 454 laps for a 26th-place finish.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB