Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 27, 1995 TAG: 9502280050
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKINGHAM, N.C. LENGTH: Long
With about 65 laps to go in the Goodwrench 500, two-time Winston Cup points champion Darrell Waltrip, his engine broken and his own race over, peered at the battle on the track between Jeff Gordon and Bobby Labonte and told his crew, ``That's a couple of young lions right there - roaring.''
The young turks of the Winston Cup series took control at North Carolina Motor Speedway on Sunday, and when the long race was over, the 23-year-old Gordon had roared the loudest, leading 329 of the 492 laps in his Chevrolet Monte Carlo before taking the checkered flag 1.19 seconds ahead of Labonte.
``We're the new guys in Winston Cup, possibly the future of Winston Cup, and we were the guys who were battling for the Busch Grand National championship three years ago,'' Gordon said.
On Sunday, they put a whipping on their former heroes. Trailing Gordon and Labonte were Dale Earnhardt, who finished third, Rusty Wallace, who broke his engine, and Kyle Petty, who was pleased to finish 10th at a track where he used to dominate a few years ago.
Gordon and the 30-year-old Labonte weren't the only young drivers to shine at the Rock. Behind Ricky Rudd, who finished fourth, and Dale Jarrett, who was fifth, came second-year driver Steve Grissom, whose sixth-place finish came on the heels of his seventh-place showing in the Daytona 500.
And Ward Burton, another second-year driver finished ninth behind Mark Martin, who was seventh, and eighth-place Derrike Cope.
While the youngsters won the battle of the generations here, they experienced the harsh realities of spending four hours dancing around the Rock. Most of them were exhausted when it was over.
``Racing 492 laps here is like going to a gang fight and your gang doesn't show up,'' crew chief Tim Brewer said after his young driver, John Andretti, put a smile on Brewer's face with a 13th-place finish.
Gordon took oxygen after taking the trophy.
``I'm not going to be ashamed of putting some oxygen on my face,'' he said. ``Out there in the car I felt great. But as soon as you stop and get out and start talking, it catches up with you if you don't take some deep breaths.''
Said Labonte, ``It's not what you'd want to do every day. I haven't done this [drive 500 miles] in awhile. It might wear me out a little bit, but I'll get them next week.''
But while the young drivers were wearing themselves out stealing the limelight, Earnhardt was doing what he does best when he can't win. He was finishing. His third-place finish, coupled with that unsatisfying second in the Daytona 500, let him quietly take the lead in the Winston Cup championship. Daytona 500 winner Sterling Marlin dropped from first to third in points after finishing 12th.
``We got the points lead, and it took us two races to do that,'' Earnhardt said. His Chevy was ``a little tight'' Sunday, but ``we lived all day, and a lot of others didn't.''
Gordon, Labonte and Earnhardt made it a one-two-three Chevy finish, and for the second straight race, the Fords managed to lead only 10 laps.
``We were getting our butts kicked [by the Fords] all last year, and I don't see why we can't do a little bit of it this year,'' Gordon said.
Counting down the laps during a race at Rockingham can be, at its worst, like counting the days of a prison sentence. But Labonte stayed close enough to Gordon to make this one entertaining.
And with 28 laps to go, he made a bold bid for the lead as Gordon came upon the slower cars of Kenny Wallace and Ricky Craven.
When Gordon was briefly slowed by Wallace's car, Labonte went outside of Gordon and got the nose of his car in the lead, only to find himself blocked by Craven's car. After that, Gordon slowly stretched his lead and never was challenged again.
``When he got beside me, I didn't want that,'' Gordon said. ``I've had to battle with Bobby before in a Busch race, and it didn't turn out well for either of us.
``I kind of saw it coming. I had to make a decision to go high or low. He was eating me up in traffic. He got to the outside of me, and I was just praying that Craven's car was going to slip up the track when he got down in [turn] 1. And he did, and Bobby had to check up a little bit.
``You don't want to have to battle side-by-side with anybody at the end of a race, but I think we still had a better car. And we got away from him a little bit in the last 15 or 20 laps.''
Said Labonte: ``I think if I could have got in front of him, I could have held him a little while. I don't know if I could have held him for 25 laps, but my car just went away there at the end.''
It was impressive that Labonte could mount any challenge at all, given the fact that he was the cause of the 11th and final yellow flag when he spun in turn 2 on lap 433 trying to pass the lapped car of Jeff Burton.
``I told the crew to make sure to tell me when we got to 15 laps to go because that's when we spun last week'' and crashed at Daytona, he said. ``I wanted to make sure I wouldn't do it again. Instead, I spun with about 50 to go.''
But there was no damage to his car, and he didn't even lose second place. So Labonte shrugged it off as another learning experience and resumed his chase of Gordon.
As Gordon put it: ``We've still got a lot to learn, but this is a great step.''
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB