Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 20, 1995 TAG: 9502210052
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. LENGTH: Long
And when it came to the end of the race, Dale Earnhardt could surmount every obstacle until he ran into Marlin's brick that barrier.
Marlin held off Earnhardt's charge to win his second consecutive Daytona 500 by several car lengths, or sixty-one-hundredths of a second on the stopwatch. Mark Martin finished third, followed by Ted Musgrave and pole-winner Dale Jarrett, respectively.
``I wish everybody here could sit in that seat and feel the feeling to win this thing,'' Marlin said. ``Coming off [turn] 4, knowing you're going to win this thing, and all the people cheering ... it sends cold chills all over you.''
While the race became interesting at the end, it was a one-man show for most of the afternoon.
Marlin led 105 of the 200 laps, and although he never edged ahead of the field by more than six or eight car lengths, he broke the draft enough to show everyone that his yellow Chevy was too strong to beat Sunday.
So now the 37-year-old Tennessean has bagged the biggest race of the year back-to-back for the only victories of his NASCAR Winston Cup career. Meanwhile, the seven-time series champion is 0-for-17 in the 500 despite winning 26 other races here.
``All of 'em are heartbreaking losses if you don't win,'' Earnhardt told reporters as he emerged from his car.
Don't ask Marlin to shed any tears for Earnhardt.
``Maybe when I quit he can win it then,'' Marlin said.
Marlin's car had been the strongest all week in practice. His crew members probably didn't need any more motivation than that, but got it anyway when word got back to them Saturday that Earnhardt's crew had been sniping at them.
``The crewman of another car, he'd been talking to the [No.]3 camp, and they said they had it won, more or less,'' Marlin said. ``They told him, `We ain't going to worry about them. They'll make a mistake somewhere.'
``It kind of built a fire under us,'' he said. ``I think this time they know we're for real.''
The race was interrupted for 1 hour, 44 minutes because of rain and it was so cloudy and dark here Sunday afternoon that the lights along the trioval, which are used for the 24 Hours of Daytona, were turned on late in the afternoon.
In the pits, the big story, particularly early in the race, was a severe tire shortage. Goodyear brought 3,200 tires, but teams were using them up at a fast clip during practice. By the time the green flag fell, Goodyear was out.
Some teams started the race with only two or three sets. And during the first 60 laps, the five non-injury crashes and spins, involving nine cars, triggered a wave of frenzied deal-making on pit road as teams begged and cajoled the crash victims for their remaining tires.
The shortage was so severe that NASCAR's Les Richter and Goodyear's Leo Mehl jumped into the fray. Prowling pit road, they commandeered unused tires in an effort to dole them out equitably. In the end, everyone appeared to have enough tires and there were no public complaints of unfairness.
But when Dave Marcis fell out of the race after smacking the wall on lap 133, he refused to let Richter take his last set of unused tires. He insisted on giving them to Earnhardt, whose car owner, Richard Childress, had loaned Marcis the engine he was using.
And when Bobby Labonte crashed in turn 1 on lap 187, Earnhardt came into the pits and his crew mounted Marcis' tires for the final dash.
Earnhardt was the only driver among the leaders to pit during that final caution. But it was clear he needed new tires if he hoped to have any chance of winning.
Just seven laps before the yellow, he had been leading Marlin for 18 circuits. Marlin then decided he wanted back in front and blew by Earnhardt on the backstretch.
``It looked like a slow car came out of the pits and kind of drifted high,'' Marlin said. ``[Earnhardt's] car got real high in turn 2 and it looked like the front end got to pushing. I just turned down and went by him.''
Earnhardt, with Marcis' new tires, headed out of the pits in 13th position. The race restarted with 12 laps to go. And then Earnhardt showed once again why he's the best of the best.
He sliced through the field, passing lapped cars and lead lap cars alike, moving from 13th to second in eight laps. When he went by Jeff Gordon, Gordon told his crew that Earnhardt had the race in the bag.
After Earnhardt blew by Martin to move into second, Earnhardt's spotter told him: ``Mark says he'll go with you. Mark says he'll go where you go.''
Now he was dogging the leader with the promise of drafting help. It looked as if Earnhardt might win his most elusive race in grand fashion.
But that's when he hit the yellow-brick wall.
Martin couldn't help, because Marlin and Earnhardt moved ahead of him. And Earnhardt simply didn't have the power or handling to do it on his own. He couldn't even mount a challenge.
``If we had some help with somebody out there, we would have got him,'' Earnhardt said. ``But he was awful strong. I reckon the best car won.''
``I figured it would be awful hard for Dale to get back through'' the pack, Marlin said. ``But Dale [did] a heck of a job coming back through them. I'd like to see on tape how he got through all those cars.''
``I had her down low, just trying to drive a perfect line. And sure enough, here he came. He just blew by Martin. But he needed a push for him to get up and get by me.''
Starting the last lap, crew chief Tony Glover told his driver, ``Hammer down! First one back is the winner.''
Said Marlin: ``I was just concerned with going real good in turns 1 and 2 because I had trouble there earlier. He got close down the back straight, but once we got into the third corner, I knew we had it. Our car had been perfect in [turns] 3 and 4 all day. I knew when we got to [turn] 4 that if something bad didn't happen to us, we had it.''
``We were just lucky that we didn't have a couple of more laps. He would have probably gotten me.''
But anyone who saw this race would have to think Marlin was being generous. Earnhardt hadn't busted through that yellow-brick wall all afternoon, and it didn't appear he would no matter how long this race lasted.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB