Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 5, 1995 TAG: 9506060087
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DOVER, DEL. LENGTH: Medium
Gary Nelson, the Winston Cup director, roped off an area on the horse track behind the pits and created a tire distribution center, where he doled out rubber in the inimitable style of NASCAR's benevolent dictatorship.
The tire store became necessary when Goodyear scrapped the original tires it brought here because they were chunking and blistering on the new concrete surface of the mile track.
After a shipment of 400 replacement right-side tires and 700 left-side tires arrived early Sunday morning and the teams chipped in another 100 right-side tires they had found around their shops, it was obvious there still were not enough Goodyear tires to meet the demand.
So, to make tire allocations fair to all, Gary's Tire Store opened for business.
``We got some good breaks today,'' Nelson said. ``Unfortunately, part of it was at the expense of that first big wreck.''
At the beginning of the race, the tire store was out of stock after Nelson doled out six sets of tires to each team.
But when 18 cars crashed on the second lap, Nelson collected the unused tires from the three teams that dropped out of the race. By lap 25, Gary's store had 15 sets of new tires.
Other sets began trickling in when NASCAR inspectors collected one set each from the teams that were crippled by the wreck but still running.
``Our first tire sale - I should say `allocation' - went to the first 25 cars in the race,'' Nelson said. That happened between lap 100 and 200 and gave all the competitive and remotely competitive cars a second set.
In the end, everybody had enough, although race-winner Kyle Petty and second-place finisher Bobby Labonte had no new right-side tires left in their pits when the checkered flag fell.
Gary's Tire Store, however, had five full sets left. But Nelson decided not to distribute those because there were six cars on the lead lap until almost the very end, so one team would have been unfairly shorted.
There was much bartering, haggling and arguing during the race as the leaders tried unsuccessfully to persuade Nelson to make lapped cars give up some of their fresh rubber.
Petty's team, however, made a slick move to get an eighth set with about 100 laps to go.
``The King [Richard Petty] slipped us a set down there,'' Kyle Petty said of his father. ``So we had one of the King's sets.''
But not for long. Nelson heard about it, went to Kyle's pit, confiscated the four tires and took them back to his store.
YOUR CHEATIN' HUB: Although NASCAR officials were preoccupied with the tire crisis Sunday, they did take time to display for the first time the wheel hub they confiscated from Jeff Gordon's team after the May 28 race at Charlotte. The incident led to a Winston Cup-record $60,000 fine for crew chief Ray Evernham.
The hub had been damaged when Gordon had problems with his right-front wheel during the Coca-Cola 600, which prompted NASCAR's Nelson to take a closer look.
The hub was not an approved NASCAR part because it had been sculpted and drilled to remove metal and lighten the part. ``In our opinion, it wasn't a strong enough hub for a Winston Cup car,'' Nelson said. The reason for the huge fine was that a thin piece of metal had been welded to the hub to cover up the holes and make the hub look like an approved part.
``The metal was put there to disguise it and hide it,'' Nelson said.
A BOOST FOR DODSON: Petty's victory provided a big lift to crew chief Barry Dodson, who lost his two teen-age children last year in a traffic accident.
``This keeps me alive,'' Dodson said.. ``I talked to some people this morning and I said, `I just feel like walking away and hiding. Everything's going so bad.'
``It's for my children. I felt like if I couldn't win a race this year for my children, you know, maybe I'd do something else. I knew we could, I felt like we could, and by golly we did it.''
FINE MESS, PART II: Richard Broome, manager and crew chief for Hut Stricklin's car, was fined $2,000 on Sunday after a piece of unsecured lead came out of the car during practice Friday.
Broome couldn't have been too upset about it. Stricklin finished fourth Sunday, the team's best performance of the year.
SOLID RUN FOR MAST: Rick Mast of Rockbridge Baths, Va., finished 13th, two laps down, but he believes he would have been on the lead lap if not for two problems.
``We had two air wrenches fail on the second pit stop, and that cost us a lap,'' Mast said. ``And we had a tire equalize, and that cost us the other lap. But I had a good car. I passed a lot of cars today.''
HENSLEY SUBS AGAIN: Jimmy Hensley of Ridgeway took over for Darrell Waltrip after the second-lap crash and drove to a 20th-place finish, two laps down.
``We kind of missed on the setup today,'' Hensley said, ``but we're rolling and we're in one piece.''
by CNB