ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, October 3, 1993                   TAG: 9310030115
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C.                                LENGTH: Medium


PONTIAC TEAM OWNERS, DRIVERS SINGING BLUES

"We're the lonesome rangers," car owner Felix Sabates said Friday, talking about the Pontiac Winston Cup teams.

And the way things are going, Sabates said at North Wilkesboro Speedway, the Pontiacs are armed with blanks, not silver bullets.

After two days of testing last week at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Sabates, Rusty Wallace and others in the Pontiac stable were convinced that NASCAR's new slow-them-down rules hurt Pontiacs the most. The rules call for the cars to have smaller spoilers, higher roofs and higher front-end clearances for Charlotte and Atlanta.

"The Charlotte tests showed the rules absolutely hurt the Pontiacs worse than any other make," Wallace said. "They're killing us."

The reason, the teams said, is that the Pontiacs are not as aerodynamically efficient as the Fords and Chevys and needed the bigger spoiler to compensate.

Sabates said he believes General Motors racing executives, most of whom are former Chevy officials, are not fighting hard enough for Pontiac's interests.

Sabates, who owns the Pontiacs driven by Kyle Petty and Kenny Wallace, said he has a new three-year contract proposal from Pontiac on his desk, but he won't sign it until he is sure GM and NASCAR are serious about Pontiac's participation in the Winston Cup series.

"I don't want to sign until I see what the rules are," Sabates said. "My main concern is my sponsors, not Pontiac, and if I can't be competitive with Pontiacs, I'll switch."

Rusty Wallace, meanwhile, has been considering a switch to Ford for some time.

And Sabates speculated that Wallace, in the midst of a championship battle with Dale Earnhardt, might switch to Ford for the season finale in Atlanta if next weekend's Charlotte race convinces him that the Pontiacs are not competitive on the intermediate-length tracks.

Said Wallace: "We're going to do whatever it takes to win the championship, but we won't be running a Ford at Atlanta."

\ LOWE'S 150: Barry Beggarly, the 1993 NASCAR Winston Racing Series national champion, led the Lowe's 150 from flag to flag to beat Dennis Setzer by about five car-lengths on the .625-mile track here.

David Blankenship was third, followed by Mike Skinner, Robert Huffman and Christiansburg's Ronnie Thomas.

"I hadn't really won anything up here, so it's a real treat," Beggarly said. "I've always said I wanted to ride that elevator" that carries the victorious car to victory lane on the roof of the speedway's infield media center.

While vying for the national short-track title, Beggarly also won track championships at Ace Speedway in Altamahaw and Orange County Speedway in Rougemont.

Keywords:
AUTO RACING



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