Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 27, 1995 TAG: 9503270112
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DARLINGTON, S. C. LENGTH: Medium
But NASCAR's oldest big track proved once again Sunday, in a new and unexpected way, that it really is tough to tame.
Sterling Marlin survived the worst wreckfest in Darlington's 45-year history to win the TranSouth 400, while two-thirds of the field was involved in one or more of the race's 15 crashes.
Things really got nasty toward the end, when Bobby Labonte suffered a cracked shoulder blade in the fourth four-car crash of the day on lap 217 of the 293-lap event. He was taken to McLeod Regional Medical Center in Florence, where he was treated and released with an arm in a sling.
The previous record for cautions in a Darlington race was 14 in the 1982 and 1985 Southern 500s, but Sunday's race was only 400 miles.
``It was really a wider track before they repaved it,'' Marlin said after his second victory of the season. ``Going into turn 1, it's a lot narrower than it used to be. It's a lot tighter and two seconds faster, and that kind of makes for an exciting place to be.''
Marlin won by 1.05 seconds over Dale Earnhardt, who made the most of a subpar day and managed to avoid trouble. Ted Musgrave was third in the best finish of his career, followed by Todd Bodine and Derrike Cope. Steve Grissom, Michael Waltrip, Morgan Shepherd and Bobby Hamilton also finished on the lead lap, in that order.
Waltrip's fate was indicative of what could happen on a wacky Sunday in South Carolina when 66 percent of the cars crashed.
On lap 27 Waltrip was bashed in the back by Mark Martin on a restart. The frontstretch crash also took out Rusty Wallace. And there already had been three yellow flags.
``I get clobbered and now I'm running dead last with a car tore [up],'' Waltrip said on his radio shortly after the crash. But he became one of the race's most successful survivors. By the end of the afternoon, with his seventh-place finish salted away, Waltrip was calling it a good day.
``If anybody ever thought that by changing the surface they would change the track, they're wrong,'' Greg Sacks said. ``This is still Darlington.'' Sacks crashed twice and still finished 22nd.
He was one spot ahead of Wallace, who spent about 57 laps in the garage fixing his wrecked car and still finished ahead of 19 drivers.
The first half of the race was another Jeff Gordon runaway.
Gordon led 155 of the first 189 laps, but the crash virus infected Gordon, too. By that time, Marlin had passed him and was leading.
``Jeff Gordon, he was gone early on new tires,'' Marlin said. ``But we could run around the same speed as him on old tires. He could outrun us for 30 laps, but after 30 laps we could reel him back in.''
But on a restart on lap 200, just behind Marlin, Bobby Labonte tagged the lapped car of Randy LaJoie in turn 1. LaJoie collected Gordon while Morgan Shepherd plowed into the back of Dick Trickle's car.
``I don't know what happened out there,'' Gordon said. ``We got caught up in it and there was nowhere to go.''
The crash broke Gordon's oil cooler, and his engine was without oil pressure long enough for his team to suspect it had been damaged. Rather than risk blowing the engine, the team retired the car.
``I don't want to ruin that motor,'' said crew chief Ray Evernham.
Labonte, meanwhile, had kept running after that crash, and one before it. But he wasn't out of trouble. He had lost a lap, but regained it after becoming involved in the first four-car crash of the race, on lap 75. Labonte had clawed all the way back to second when he tagged LaJoie. That sent him tumbling back to 14th. And he was on his way back through the field when Rick Mast tangled with Billy Standridge, one of the back-markers in this race, while they battled through turn 2.
Mast's spinning car collected Labonte, who was clobbered by Trickle. Mast and Labonte then slammed hard into the inside wall on the backstretch.
Seconds later, a crewman radioed Labonte: ``You all right, Bobby?''
``Nooooooo!'' Labonte said in anguish.
He crawled out of his car, staggered to the pit wall and crawled over it, sitting against the cold concrete as rescue workers helped him.
And so it went, as 28 of the 42 cars were involved in one wreck or another.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB