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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 16, 1994                   TAG: 9403160085
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GREENSBORO, N.C.                                LENGTH: Short

RUMLEY AIMS TO ROLL TO MARTINSVILLE WIN

Part-time stock car racer Johnny Rumley has started in only seven Grand National races, but don't be too surprised if his name is in the headlines this weekend after the Miller 500 doubleheader at Martinsville Speedway.

Given the level of competitiveness in the Grand National series, you won't find a part-time driver with a pickup pit crew stealing too many GN races. But that's exactly what Rumley did Nov. 7, coming out of nowhere to win the 300-lap GN race at Hickory.

He led the last 22 laps and won by 2.62 seconds over Chuck Bown to win his first GN race in just seven starts. In his first GN race, at New River Valley Speedway in April, 1992, Rumley won the pole.

At Martinsville, the 36-year-old from Winston-Salem has entered the 200-lap Late Model Stock Car race and the 300-lap Grand National race, which starts Sunday at 1 p.m.

"I'd like to win 'em both," he said. "It's been a long time since anybody has done that." (Paul Radford did in 1977.)

Rumley, who looks like Dale Earnhardt and acts a lot like him, too, would love to be in the thick of the crowded GN series full time, but the breaks haven't come his way.

In the meantime, Rumley spends his weeks running his own roofing company, which he started when he was 20 so he could make the money he needed to go racing. He didn't start racing until he was 30.

"It took that long to put the pieces together," Rumley said. "Guys who think racing is tough in the summer ought to get on a roof three or four days a week. The heat is nothing in racing, compared to roofing."

Keywords:
AUTO RACING

by CNB