Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 22, 1994 TAG: 9408220033
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BROOKLYN, MICH. LENGTH: Medium
"Every lap, I could see the wall coming up in turn 2 and you could see those marks over there," Bodine said. "And Ernie came to mind. You'd think about him every lap. But some things you just have to do."
"You love this sport most of the time, but sometimes you hate it. And I hated it [Saturday]. Why didn't it rain three hours before it did? We didn't need to practice then. But we have to deal with it and we have to go on."
Bodine no doubt would have had less time to think about Irvan if someone else in the 42-car field had been able to challenge him. But the Ford Thunderbird/Hoosier tire driver was well out in front of everyone else most of the afternoon, driving by himself.
A couple of late-race yellow flags bunched the field, but in the final 10 laps, Bodine still managed to pull well ahead, crossing the finish line almost a second ahead of Mark Martin. The actual margin of victory was .91 seconds.
Rick Mast was third, equaling his third-place finish at Rockingham in February. Rusty Wallace was fourth and Bobby Labonte, driving a Pontiac Grand Prix, was fifth. Fords swept the first four spots. The highest finishing Chevrolet Lumina driver was Terry Labonte, who was eighth, one lap down.
"We ran good, but I don't think I was as dominant as at Pocono" in July, Bodine said after his 16th career victory and his second of the season. "It was a good race, though. A great race. We didn't have any trouble - no problems on the track. I had a car that I felt like could win, and I was right."
Bodine led 159 of the 200 laps, including the first 44 and the final 50. No one else had much time at the point. Martin led four laps; Mast was in front for seven.
"He was just playing with us," Martin said after the race. "They had us covered pretty good. I wish everybody would have been on the same tire so we could have seen. I don't want to take anything away from Bodine. They were hooked up good. But I think they had us covered on tires."
"Goodyear is going to have to work harder," Wallace said. "We got our [butts] kicked again today. So they're going to have to get after that a little harder."
"They can be on the same tires," Bodine said. "They have a choice. They might not like the competition, but they don't seem to complain when they beat us."
Bodine said he didn't stroke to the victory. "It was nailed down as hard as it could go," he said. "I really ran the car hard, especially on restarts to get away from everybody as much as we could. I know the fans wanted to see side-by-side racing, but not me."
And Wallace admitted that his biggest problem came during pit stops, where "all of us just screwed up today so bad that it was just unbelievable. Fell off the jack, run out of gas, got two terrible sets of tires - it was just stupid."
Mast finished third even though he fell far back after the first pit stop when an air wrench broke.
"So then we played catch up all day," he said.
Mast was in the best position to win a fuel mileage race, and that appeared possible with about 50 laps to go. It appeared that everyone would have to pit again except Mast. But his hopes to stretch his gas mileage into victory lane ended when a yellow flag flew on lap 171 for debris in turn 1. And there was another one on lap 188 when Loy Allen spun in turn 3.
Mast made a run at Martin, "but on those last two restarts, my motor got a little weak."
But in the midst of all the race talk, Irvan's hoped-for recovery was still not far from everyone's thoughts. And the winner of the race seemed to best explain why this race happened at all.
"I've told people, and my wife knows it and [crew chief] Paul [Andrews], that if something happens to me like it did to Ernie, keep going. Find somebody else to do it. Don't stop," Bodine said. "I think all the drivers feel the same way.
"If you work in a factory and somebody dies of a heart attack, you don't shut the factory down. If Joe Montana goes out there and breaks his leg, you don't stop the football game," he said. "That's how we feel about racing."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB