Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 25, 1994 TAG: 9404250035
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Long
In one of the great pit-stop showdowns in NASCAR history, Rusty Wallace's crew put the muscle on Ernie Irvan's crew with a lightning stop that gave Wallace the lead for good during a caution period on lap 434.
From there, Wallace held off Irvan to win by forty-six-hundredths of a second, or about three car-lengths. Because he won from the pole, Wallace's race winnings of $173,675 included a $98,800 bonus from Unocal.
"It came down to a true Southern dogfight in the pits," Wallace said. "We hit pit road coming in second and went out first. That was a neat deal."
Mark Martin was third, followed by Darrell Waltrip, Morgan Shepherd, Todd Bodine and Chuck Bown, all on the lead lap. Wallace and nine of the top 10 drivers were driving Ford Thunderbirds. Only Waltrip stopped Ford from a top-10 sweep.
Pit-stop times are unofficial. But Wallace's crew got him out in 16.1 seconds, according to ESPN cable's stopwatch, and that made all the difference. He burst out of the pits inches ahead of Irvan.
"We were in the [16-second range] on pit stops all day, and on the last one we just got beat," said Irvan's crew chief, Larry McReynolds. "I mean, what else can you say? Our last stop was like a 16.9 and my hat is off to them. It was obvious to us that whichever car was in front was going to stay there."
Although Wallace dominated the race, leading 319 of 500 laps, he wasn't sure he could have passed Irvan if his crew had lost that last battle on pit road.
"Maybe, maybe not," Wallace said. "If I told you all I could drive right around him, that would be a lie. I don't know if I could have gotten around him."
"It seems like whenever it comes down to a good race, it comes down to me and Rusty," Irvan said. "He was loose at the end, but he was still real good. Rusty can drive the wheels off something, and he did again today."
It's hard to say you just got beat, and Irvan wasn't thrilled about having to say it.
But his consolation was the Winston Cup points lead. Irvan overtook Dale Earnhardt, who struggled to an 11th-place finish, one lap down. Irvan leads the reigning champ by 25 points.
Earnhardt's day went from average to worse to miserable. He never led a lap, but was a top-five contender until a pit crewman left the gas-catch can stuck in the back of the car after a pit stop around lap 228. Earnhardt managed to shake it loose on the track, much to NASCAR's displeasure. Earnhardt was ordered back to the pits for a stop-and-go penalty.
Earnhardt remained on the lead lap after that, however, and had clawed back to sixth, only to slip back to 10th. Then, on lap 322, Brett Bodine got into him in turn 1 on lap 322, sending Earnhardt spinning out of the groove. That cost him a lap.
"We just had a bad break," Earnhardt said. "I can't remember anything like that ever happening to us before. We ended up being the last car on the lead lap, and that hurt.
"The car was pretty good today, but we used brake pads that were too hard. I just about killed my left leg mashing the brakes."
There was no doubt about the excitement of the late-race pit duel. But even with that, there were only three passes for the lead on the track. The other six lead changes occurred in the pits. And until NASCAR stepped in, the race was a Wallace runaway.
He was about eight seconds ahead and had been in the lead for more than 200 laps when a yellow flag - one of 11 on the day - flew on lap 323 for Earnhardt's spin.
After Wallace pitted, his crew ordered him to the back of the field.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Too fast on pit road - speeding," crew chief Buddy Parrott said. Wallace was sent to the end of the longest line, which at that time was the line with all the lapped cars.
Wallace wondered whether NASCAR might have called the penalty simply to stop him from stinking up the show. But he didn't waste much time worrying about it and he told his crew not to fret, either.
High above the track in the spotter's tower, car owner Roger Penske also offered reassuring words. "We're looking real good," Penske said. "We've got a real good car."
Wallace used the next 110 laps to work his way into second, riding on Irvan's tail. That set the stage for the pit-stop duel when Dick Trickle spun in turn 2 on lap 432.
Afterward, Wallace said: "Well, you can't get real concerned about [the penalty], because every single time I've seen anybody get stopped for speeding on pit road, it's not the kind of thing where you can stop racing and try to come in and talk to the boss and see if you can get the thing amended. They say I was speeding and I guess I was speeding."
But did he think NASCAR levied the penalty to make a better show?
"No, I don't think that's what they wanted to do," Wallace said. "I think I probably was speeding out of the pits, but I think I did probably make a better show out of it."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB