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

DATE: MONDAY, October 10, 1994                   TAG: 9410140036
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CONCORD, N. C.                                 LENGTH: Medium

EARNHARDT NEARS POINTS TITLE

Dale Earnhardt had trouble for the third straight race Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but he was near the front as always in the end, finishing third in the Mello Yello 500 to edge ever closer to his record-tying seventh Winston Cup championship.

And when his closest challenger, Rusty Wallace, suddenly slowed while running second on lap 256 and headed to the garage with a broken engine, Earnhardt's advantage became so great as to be almost insurmountable.

No matter what Wallace does at Rockingham in two weeks, if Earnhardt finishes third or better and leads a lap, he clinches the championship, according to some quick figuring by motorsports reporters here.

By virtue of Wallace's 37th-place finish, Earnhardt gained 113 points and now leads by 321 with three races to go.

``I'm going to take it right to the living end, man,'' Wallace said. ``I don't quit, you know.''

GIBBS ON JARRETT: Before his driver, Dale Jarrett, went out and won the Mello Yello 500, ex-NFL coach Joe Gibbs, owner of the No. 18 Chevrolet Lumina, said he couldn't say whether Jarrett would be returning to the team next year.

Jarrett said Saturday he has an offer from Robert Yates to drive injured Ernie Irvan's No. 28 Ford Thunderbird and he had ``taken it to Joe.''

``Basically, the less I say about it the better,'' Gibbs said Sunday morning. ``We've got a two-year contract. But there are a lot of things going on. Who knows?''

After Jarrett's victory, Gibbs said: ``I think right now we want to concentrate on this victory and not spend a lot of time worrying about next year.''

RUDD AND GORDON CLASH: Ricky Rudd and Jeff Gordon knocked each other around on lap 324 and argued about it afterward.

``I kept trying to get to the outside of Ricky,'' Gordon said. ``He'd block me, and then I'd get underneath him, and I worked my way in front of him. Evidently, he didn't like that, so he decided to take both of us out.''

Said Rudd, ``He didn't do me right the way he passed me. I was going to make his life miserable and have him so loose he couldn't drive. I got him a little too loose. But I got into him only after he turned sideways.''

Keywords:
AUTO RACING

by CNB