Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 24, 1995 TAG: 9504250056
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRUCE STANTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
The Oklahoma City bombing Wednesday hit home with Waltrip, who finished fourth in the race.
The tragedy has been heavy on the mind of his team all week, even while he dominated nearly half of the Hanes 500.
``I guess of all the things that's happened in the country in my 48 years, I've never had anything that's upset me or scared me as much as that deal in Oklahoma,'' Waltrip said.
Waltrip and Western Auto, his team's sponsor, went the extra mile - literally - to help the relief effort.
A message on the rear section of his car read: ``Oklahoma City Red Cross Relief: 1-800-HELP-NOW.'' Western Auto also donated $10,000 to the relief effort and challenge all other corporations with motorsports teams to do the same.
With his strong run Sunday - Waltrip led 123 of the 183 laps before a rain delay - his car received a lot of time on ESPN's television cameras.
``I thought about that,'' he said. ``I hope it got the message out.''
Waltrip, one of Winston Cup's more outspoken stars, had another message regarding the Oklahoma City bombing.
``Weak leadership means a weak country, and we have weak leadership,'' he said in reference to the Clinton presidency. ``If we don't get some people in this country with strong leadership, these kind of people who did the bombing will take over the country.
``I was watching CNN, and what they said about Newt Gingrich and the conservatives being responsible for this sickened me.''
Besides the Oklahoma City bombing, Waltrip said he was touched and motivated by a couple of other events this week: 46-year-old George Foreman defending his International Boxing Federation heavyweight title, and the death of Ronnie Hopkins, one of Winston Cup's top car builders.
``Hopkins has been on my mind, and I wanted to win the race so I could say that,'' Waltrip said.
As for his run Sunday, Waltrip said he hated to see the rain, which delayed the start of the race by two hours and forced it to end early because of darkness.
``My car is awesome,'' he said during the 2-hour, 7-minute rain delay in the middle of the race. ``It's right there.''
But after the restart, Waltrip gambled and decided not to pit with the other cars on the lead lap. He led for 31 laps, but the strategy cost him as he fell one lap down after pitting under a green flag before staging a tremendous rally to finish fourth behind winner Rusty Wallace, runner-up Ted Musgrave and Jeff Gordon.
``When we got out of the truck after the delay, we were going to stay out,'' he said. ``We didn't care what Rusty did.
``Things like that happen. I've got a young team, and we're maturing and we're maturing together. We might make some bad calls, but the rest of the time we make good ones.''
Waltrip has won 11 Winston Cup races at Martinsville, second to Richard Petty's 15.
THE FAST LANE: Martinsville Speedway's new entrance apparently made a difference in getting fans into the parking areas quicker.
The speedway spent nearly $100,000 to create a new access road to accommodate traffic coming from Danville and other points east.
``It went super,'' said Clay Campbell, the speedway president. ``We had no problems with any traffic from the south or east. They came right in.''
H.A. ``Humpy'' Wheeler, the president of Charlotte Motor Speedway, told Campbell he made it into the parking area just five minutes after turning off U.S. 220.
HALF-MAST: Rick Mast's car was so good in the final practice Saturday, he knew bad luck had to be waiting.
``I knew she was way too fast last evening,'' he said. ``She was hooked up.''
Sure enough, only five laps into the race, Mast was involved in the eight-car crash coming out of turn 2. He slammed into Morgan Shepherd's car and wiped out the front end of his Ford.
``After that, I was basically making laps,'' he said. Mast spent more than 100 laps in the pits for repairs and finished 34 in the 36-car field. He was 120 laps off the pace.
by CNB