Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 10, 1995 TAG: 9504110073
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. LENGTH: Long
But the shortage never materialized because the second half of the race was run with only one yellow flag. And the teams that felt the brunt of the rationing program were hot about it.
``We were running on tow tires. We couldn't get any tires,'' said Ricky Rudd, who finished 29th, eight laps down. Tow tires are the used tires that teams put on cars between races.
``Half the race we had to run on used tires,'' Rudd said. ``If you were two or more laps down, you didn't get tires. Our race was over right there.''
Randy LaJoie's team also had the same problem. He finished 23rd, six laps down.
``Penske's team [with driver Rusty Wallace] got three sets while we got zero,'' said Chris Hussey, Lajoie's crew chief. `'Our guy stood there at the Goodyear building and waited for 200 laps. He said the [No.]2 car [Wallace] got three sets while he was sitting there watching. And then with 30 laps to go, [officials] came by and asked us if we wanted a set of tires.''
``Some people had to run on used tires, possibly jeopardizing their cars and the other race cars on the track,'' said Terry Labonte, who finished 16th, three laps down.
``OK, so they're giving them to the guys on the lead lap. That sounds good for them. But what about us guys trying to make a lap up?'' said Geoff Bodine, who finished 14th, two laps down.
``We got a couple of sets toward the end of the race, but it was almost over,'' said Bodine's crew chief, Paul Andrews. ``During the middle of the race, when we were supposed to get them around lap 100, we couldn't get them.''
``You're going to have to talk to NASCAR about that one,'' said Rick Campbell, a Goodyear engineer. ``NASCAR took over the mounting of tires.''
Mike Helton, NASCAR's vice president of competition, said NASCAR began rationing tires after noticing most teams had started the race with six sets and used five of them during the first half. There were two caution periods during the first half of the race and three overall.
``At that rate of consumption during the first half, there was going to be a shortage,'' Helton said. ``So we began mounting tires based on the running order. There were priorities. Lead-lap cars and those one lap down had priority. We did hold up guys more than one lap down until we got things sorted out.''
Helton said safety ``wasn't a concern. The tires were safe, just slow.''
Helton said he wasn't thrilled with having to ration tires, but ``I think it got us through the day.''
But even Wallace, who finished fourth on the lead lap, was unhappy about the tire rationing. Although he had plenty of tires, he said the rationing program led to a couple of slow pit stops when lug nuts fell off the wheels or became stuck in an air wrench.
``Well, NASCAR started rationing the tires out, and that was a really bad deal,'' he said after the race. ``When they don't give you tires until you need them, you can't glue the lug nuts on and expect them to stay on. That was a really bad deal.''
MORE TIRE STRIFE: Geoff Bodine and his team already were upset about the tire situation before the rationing program was started.
Bodine said some of the top teams that have been loyal to Goodyear showed up with eight or nine sets of tires already mounted. And he was suspicious about where they came from.
Tires usually are doled out to teams at the track, with each team receiving the same number of sets. But some teams arrived here with sets they said were left over from Richmond, since the same tire used at Richmond was used here.
But Bodine wasn't buying the contention that the extra sets were Richmond leftovers.
``You're going to hear them say they brought these from Richmond,'' Bodine said. `` ... I've got a piece of crayon and I can mark `Richmond' on them, too. Some teams had eight or nine sets. We had our spies out there this weekend. They didn't bring eight sets from Richmond. Maybe one or two, but not eight.''
Bodine, who was Hoosier's top driver during the tire war last year, said he suspects favored teams were able to get tires from Goodyear in advance.
``If we call up to ask for tires, we don't get any,'' he said. ``We can't get the right tires to test with. We went to Martinsville to test with last year's tire. So now you get into a crunch. If you need some tires, you've got to stand in line and sometimes you can't get them, or they're the wrong stagger and you can't match them up.
``But these other guys who are getting them before the race, they're matching them all up. They're having that opportunity.''
Helton said the extra tires that some teams had were, in fact, Richmond leftovers. ``We checked the serial numbers,'' he said.
MAST EIGHTH: After failing to finish three of the past five races, Rick Mast of Rockbridge Baths, Va., was happy simply to complete the First Union 400. He finished eighth, one lap down.
``We finished unscathed,'' he said. ``I think I was going to finish fifth, but what we did was roll the dice and pit with 35 to go to see if we could take a chance to win it.''
The strategy might have worked if there had been a yellow flag. But there wasn't. ``We took our chance, and it cost me two or three spots, but that was our chance to win,'' Mast said. ``As it turned out, it hurt us, but that's the way it goes.''
Keywords:
AUTO RCING
by CNB