Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 5, 1995 TAG: 9502070019
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Long
Not yet, anyway.
``People used to ask me, `When are you going to win?''' said the NASCAR driver from Rockbridge Baths. ``What it's turned to now is, `You should have done won by now.' I understand that. They're maybe right, but it doesn't bother me.''
After 154 Winston Cup races, Mast has yet to cruise into Victory Lane, but as he prepares for his fifth full season on that NASCAR circuit, there obviously are folks in high places who feel his lack of winning isn't everything.
One would be Robert Yates, the owner of the No.28 Texaco Ford, the one driven by the late Davey Allison, then the injured Ernie Irvan and now Dale Jarrett. Mast not only was offered that ride - twice, before Jarrett accepted - but also one with another ``championship-caliber team'' he declined to name.
If Mast weren't considered a wheel horse, he wouldn't have these options. He wouldn't have two years left on his contract with engineer Richard Jackson in the No.1 Skoal Thunderbird. He wouldn't have a long-term promise to be the tobacco company's biggest racing bandit, following the retirement of Harry Gant.
Mast, who turns 38 in March, isn't one of the 19 Winston Cup drivers who changed teams since November. He stayed with Jackson and Skoal not only because he thinks victory is around one of the next turns, but also because of commitment. The Texaco team might be Irvan's again next year.
``Short-term, no question that would have been a better opportunity,'' Mast said. ``But I'm looking past 1995, past 1996. Hey, it wasn't that long ago that I was thinking race-to-race, not year-to-year.
``I told Richard that as long as they wanted me to drive, as long as neither of us thought the team or me had maxed out, I'd stay here until they decided to get rid of me. I'm perfectly happy where I am. We have good relationships on the team. Sharon [Mast's wife] and I, those people are our best friends with [crew chief] Kevin Hamlin and other people on the team.
``And 80 to 85 percent of the teams don't have those relationships, that closeness. It's got to be a trade-off somehow. I think it's important to consider what's better for me and us personally, as well as professionally.''
Mast's best Winston Cup year included the pole for the inaugural Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, only the second pole of his career. He finished second at Rockingham in October and has three thirds. Mast finished in the top 10 in 10 of his 31 races in 1994 and finished a career-high 18th in Winston Cup points. Will 1995 be the year he adds his name to the list of 142 drivers who have won Winston Cup events since 1949?
``To me, there are some races we actually did win, but the final score doesn't show that,'' said Mast, sitting in his close-to-home office from which he runs his racing business within the business. ``There are races everything was working properly, then they weren't. What I'd be upset or concerned about is if in the last couple years I could pick out any race, once it was over, and said, `We should have won that race.'
``Well, there are no races we could have won. There are three races, at the start, there's no way we should have lost - the spring race at Charlotte [the Coca-Cola 600], the second Pocono race and the Indy race. At Indy, we had the car. And by the second lap, we're down to seven cylinders.
``The way it works is that when someone is cooking real good, the other cars in practice try to hook up with him. And at Indy, every single car was trying to hook onto me. We started the race and that first lap, I told myself, `Settle down, we've got the best car and 400 miles to go.` The fourth turn of the next lap, we were finished.''
Mast sat down at his home in December to watch the NASCAR Awards Banquet from New York. He watched several peers walk into the spotlight at the Waldorf Astoria and thought back to when they were going in circles.
``There were five other races we could have won if the right things had happened,'' he said. ``These guys are up there, and I'm saying, `We should have beat him,` or `We could have beat him.` Finally, I got so mad, I had to cut the durn TV off.''
Mast understands that winning a Winston Cup race isn't easy. Last year, five drivers combined to win 21 of the 31 races. There were only four single-race victors. Yes, sometimes it's luck. Mast led 166 laps for almost 201 miles - ranking 11th - over eight races. Jimmy Spencer led only 47 laps all year, but won July races at Daytona and Talladega.
``You can call it bad luck,'' Mast said, ``but then you make so much of your own luck. We might have had oodles of top fives by now. Then people would look at us differently. We'd all be heroes. ... You have to be realistic. This isn't high school football. It's the NFL. It's the best of the best of what we do. You're not going to beat somebody by hoping you're going to beat 'em.''
So, what are the big changes for the Jackson team this season?
``Paint,'' the driver said. ``Green paint.''
The color scheme on the No.1 Ford has Skoal's green added to Mast's familiar black and white. The change does give the car a more prominent profile. The Jackson team also is working to strengthen its restrictor-plate program in its shops in suburban Charlotte, N.C. Meanwhile, Mast, unlike most other drivers, continues to make his home where he grew up - in Rockbridge County.
``It's a disadvantage in that I'm not in the middle of things,'' Mast said of his decision to live where he learned more than how to drive a car. ``With our team working together like it does, though, that isn't a big deal. Besides, my plane [Mast is a licensed pilot] is ready to go up in Weyer's Cave. So, I'm only an hour away if need be.
``The advantage is I'm not in the shop every day. That's an advantage for our team, because I can be pretty domineering with my race car. That might not always be good.''
When Mast wins - he doesn't use ``if'' - it certainly will be celebrated within his team and throughout a circuit on which he truly is a good ol' boy, but it might not rank with the notoriety he gained in August when he won the Brickyard 400 pole at Indy.
``Short-term, we've gotten more out of that than anything,'' said Mast, who only 11 years earlier was running at Franklin County Speedway in Callaway. ``Because of where it was and when it was, I dare say it was the biggest pole anybody's won in the last 10 years and maybe the biggest anyone will win in the next 10 years.
``To me, what stands out is the lost opportunity in the race.''
And when Mast won that pole, he told a media corps that was somewhat foreign to NASCAR how he'd bought his first race car by trading a cow for cash. He did that because he'd seen too many of his peers walking around Gasoline Alley talking in a way they don't at Darlington and Bristol and Martinsville.
``Yes, they were briefcasing it,'' Mast said. ``I decided I wanted to get it back to where we were and who we are.''
Mast is a husband and father who in August 1990 was running his own Grand National team. He also had driven Winston Cup cars for several owners, but his supposed sponsorship had evaporated. He owned a home and had a racing shop. He had $50,000 in racing debts.
``I had $52 to my name,'' he said.
Mast then won two of the next three Grand National races. The following week, he got three Winston Cup driving offers within 50 minutes. Jackson's firm offer came first. He took it.
``I haven't forgotten that,'' said Mast, sitting behind his desk next to the body shop of the car dealership in which he used to work for his father. ``Maybe that's why I'm the way I am. I've had so many people tell me I'm still the same guy and I thought about it, so, yeah, I'm conscious of it.
``I think it all comes, No.1, from my family values, from being born and raised in the Shenandoah Valley. I don't care what people say, people in this valley, from Winchester to Roanoke, it's just a special place. It's different. That set the foundation for me. The second part of it is being humbled so many times that getting to this point is so special.
``A lot of guys are out where I am when they're 21 or 22. I didn't get a full-time deal until I was 33. There are so many different pitfalls. This is only my fifth full year out there [in Winston Cup]. I guess somewhere along the line I've come to the realization there's more to life than winning a race.''
That doesn't mean, however, he doesn't want to win one. It also doesn't mean he won't.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB