Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506260103
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BRUCE STANTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BRISTOL, TENN. LENGTH: Medium
Jimmy Hensley against the NASCAR SuperTruck field Friday night was similar to a fight between Mike Tyson and your grandmother: Ugly. No contest. A bloodbath.
Too bad for Hensley it lasted only 45 laps.
If the race had been a fight, it would have been called in the early rounds. But in racing, there is no white towel, and there is no referee to stop it. Racing is a battle of endurance, luck and skill.
Hensley showed the skill, but the luck and endurance weren't there.
He started the race second after pole-winner Mike Skinner and eventual winner Joe Ruttman were sent to the back of the field with six other drivers for missing a mandatory meeting.
Hensley's Dodge truck jumped past new pole-sitter Sammy Swindell on the first straightaway and never looked back. His lead extended to a half-lap at times as he zoomed into the high-banked corners with ease and confidence that no other driver displayed.
``We were running along really well, and then we just dropped a valve or something,'' Hensley said.
Engine failure dropped Hensley out of the Pizza Plus 150.
But a trend had been set. Hensley, a Winston Cup and Busch Grand National veteran, had driven Bristol International Raceway several times before, unlike most SuperTruck regulars. Other drivers with similar big-time racing experience - such as Ruttman and runner-up Geoff Bodine - raced the Bristol course much better than those without experience.
``That was the first time for a lot of us on this track,'' said Swindell, who inherited the lead from Hensley on lap 46 and finished fourth. ``The guys that were ahead of us just have a lot of experience.''
Ruttman is a veteran of 217 Winston Cup races, and his experience at Bristol was evident, Bodine said.
``If we ran another 100 laps, we might have been able to wear [Ruttman] down,'' said Bodine, who won three Winston Cup races last year. ``But Joe's driven here lots, and he knows how to get around here.''
Ruttman, who drives a truck co-owned by Winston Cup star Ernie Irvan, acknowledged that driving in previous races at Bristol worked to his advantage.
``This track can really be tough, and I felt like my experience would pay off at some point in the race,'' he said.
Rick Carelli, who entered the race sixth in the SuperTruck points standings and qualified fifth, said Bristol, with its 36-degree banking in the corners, was like no other track he had seen in the first eight races on the SuperTruck circuit.
``This is definitely a different track,'' he said. ``You've just got to put it in your head that you have to stand on the gas and know the track is going to hold you. You've got to stick it and go.''
No one set a better example of that than Hensley. Before his engine failed, he was within a truck length of lapping Bodine. Hensley's early onslaught put several drivers at least one lap down, and others, such as former NFL coach Jerry Glanville, were passed several times.
``Boy, it was getting too slow on the track, and I saw [Hensley] in the mirror coming up,'' Bodine said. ``But something put him out. It was too bad. He was running really good.''
In Ruttman's winning run, he averaged 72.408 mph over 150 laps. Six cautions, which included several laps run under the yellow flag because of rain, slowed the pace considerably.
But in qualifying, the trucks were zooming. Skinner won the pole by rounding the .533-mile oval in 16.160 seconds at 118.738 mph. The top five qualifiers topped 118 mph.
In comparison, at April's Food City 500 Winston Cup race at Bristol, Mark Martin won the pole at 124.605 mph.
By winning, Ruttman earned $27,000 and jumped to second in the points standings with 1,418. Butch Miller, who finished third for the fifth straight race, assumed the points lead with 1,424, and Skinner fell to third with 1,380.
Despite rainy weather that delayed the start of the race by more than one hour, Bodine said he was pleased with the series' debut at Bristol, which attracted 23,400 fans.
``Thank Mother Nature for holding the rain off and the race fans for coming out and sticking it out,'' he said. ``It was a lot of fun. I'm kind of surprised at how well the trucks did go.''
TAILGATE TIDBITS: Martinsville's SuperTruck race will be held Sept.23 on the same weekend of the Goody's 500. ... Bodine said his 17-year-old son Barry might drive a few races for the Exide Ford team next year. ... Glanville, the former coach of the Houston Oilers and Atlanta Falcons, finished 30 laps down in 22nd place. He got off to a bad start when a broken bolt on a shock forced him into the pits as the field took the green flag on the first lap. ... Winston Cup took the weekend off, but not Geoff Bodine. ``A racer likes to race,'' he said. ``A weekend off to a racer just means he's racing something else somewhere. If he's racing somewhere he usually doesn't race, that's a weekend off.''
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB