ROANOKE TIMES

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

DATE: THURSDAY, April 14, 1994                   TAG: 9404140058
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium


SCHEDULE STIFFEST TEST FOR NASCAR DRIVERS

Between tire testing and team testing, Winston Cup drivers have been test crazy the past few weeks.

Consider Darrell Waltrip. His test for Hoosier tires from 5-10 p.m. Wednesday at Charlotte Motor Speedway was only one in a long list of midweek jaunts.

In the week after the Atlanta race, Waltrip tested tires at North Wilkesboro and Darlington. The week after that, it was back to North Wilkesboro and then to Martinsville Speedway.

Next week, Waltrip is at Daytona to test for Hoosier. And the week after that, he's in Dover, where six other Hoosier drivers tested last week. After Talladega on May 1, Waltrip plans more testing at Pocono and possibly Michigan.

Martinsville has been one of the busiest tracks for testing. Geoff Bodine was there Monday and Tuesday; John Andretti on Tuesday and Wednesday. Andretti was joined by Jeremy Mayfield on Wednesday.

Loy Allen also was there Tuesday, with help from Derrike Cope, who looped Allen's car during one lap. Others there Tuesday were Joe Nemechek and Grand National regular Jim Bown, who plans to try to make the field for the Hanes 500 Winston Cup race April 24 at Martinsville.

Those testing at Martinsville last week included Jimmy Hensley of nearby Ridgeway, Steve Grissom, Michael Waltrip and Rusty Wallace, who reportedly had the fastest laps of anyone testing in recent weeks.

Jimmy Spencer is scheduled to test at Martinsville today, after which the track will be closed to testing until the upcoming race.

\ WALTRIP'S GOODYEAR FLING OVER: After a brief affair with Goodyear tires at Bristol, Waltrip is back on Hoosiers for North Wilkesboro and Martinsville, bolstered by the knowledge that he has tested them there.

Although Bodine proved Hoosier had a good tire at Bristol, leading 160 laps, no one knew before the race they would do that well.

"For our particular situation, it was the right choice" to switch to Goodyear, said Barry Dodson, Waltrip's crew chief. Unlike other drivers, Waltrip had no tire failures using Goodyears.

Although Waltrip failed to qualify for the race and had to use a champion's provisional to get into the field, he did surprisingly well, reaching fourth place on lap 320 before a broken tie rod dropped him to a 15th-place finish, 24 laps behind winner Dale Earnhardt.

"Qualifying didn't rattle us," Dodson said. "What happened didn't surprise any of us. That car has a history of racing well but not qualifying well."

\ ELLIOTT'S PLANS: Things are busy around the Elliott enclave and shops in Dawsonville, Ga., as Bill continues to lay the groundwork for his return to the Winston Cup series with his own team in 1995.

Bill and his brother, Ernie, have been inspecting haulers in the garage area. And the Atlanta Constitution is reporting that Elliott will field Bobby Hillin in a car at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 29.

Although Elliott is a longtime Ford loyalist, the folks at Pontiac reportedly will be traveling to the north Georgia mountains to make their pitch to him next week.

\ WILKESBORO INTERNATIONAL: What do they care about stock car racing in China and Portugal?

They care enough for ESPN to transmit Sunday's First Union 400 at North Wilkesboro to those two countries and 78 more around the world, the track reports.

Many countries get the broadcast in English with the regular ESPN announcing crew, including anchor Bob Jenkins. But at ESPN studios in Bristol, Conn., translators will be standing by to overdub live commentary of the race in Spanish, Portuguese and mandarin Chinese.

\ FROM AUGUSTA TO TALLADEGA: Grandstands that were used at the Masters golf tournament are headed for Talladega Superspeedway, where they will be erected in turn 3 to provide 5,100 more reserved seats for the Winston 500 on May 1.

For the first time in track history, all reserved seats for the race sold out in March, prompting track president Grant Lynch to order the temporary stands. In another first, the race will have a purse exceeding $1 million. The official amount to be divided among the competitors is $1,065,261.



 by CNB