Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 4, 1995 TAG: 9509050112
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DARLINGTON, S.C. LENGTH: Medium
For the second consecutive race at Darlington Raceway, the best NASCAR drivers turned the garage area into a bodyman's nightmare, wrecking and tearing up cars as if this 1.366-mile oval were a short track.
Of the 25 drivers involved in yellow-flag spins or crashes in Sunday's Southern 500, only Bill Elliott was worse for the wear.
Elliott, fortunately, was only shaken up in the race's biggest wreck - a six-car crash in turn 1 on lap 252.
Elliott was slow to exit the car and needed two people to assist him to the ambulance, although he walked.
``Bill got the wind knocked out of him,'' said crew chief Mike Beam. ``The car hit the wall pretty hard. He's a bit woozy and wants to sit down and rest a bit. He'll be fine.''
Terry Labonte was involved, as was Jimmy Spencer, Mike Wallace, pole-winner John Andretti and Ed Berrier.
Only 16 laps later, there was another big crash in the same turn when Rick Mast tried to go three-wide under Greg Sacks and Geoff Bodine.
``I thought I'd clear them, but I didn't,'' said Mast, from Rockbridge Baths, Va. ``I'll take the biggest part of the blame for this one.''
``That was pretty stupid,'' Bodine said. ``It's hard enough to go in there one-wide much less three-wide.''
Before it was over, Elton Sawyer, Kyle Petty and Darrell Waltrip also were involved.
Mast's car was damaged significantly, and he limped to a 26th-place finish, 34 laps down.
Other crash victims included Mark Martin, who did little more than smack the wall sideways around lap 72, but did considerable damage to his Ford, and Dale Jarrett, who hit the front stretch wall on lap 124.
WARD'S GREAT FINISH: In only his second race for car owner Bill Davis, and despite being involved in a wreck, Ward Burton had a season-best fourth place finish in the Southern 500.
``We just went racin,''' Burton said. ``It was a lot of fun. For only our second time out, to run in the top 10 all day at one of the toughest tracks there is, I'm just glad I made the decision [to join the team] I did.''
Davis said the team had been planning to take the Labor Day holiday off, but ``now they all want to work, so we are.''
DOLE'S VISIT: You can tell the political season is heating up when presidential candidates start showing up at the race track.
U.S. Sen. Bob Dole. R-Kan., was here Sunday and predictably voiced his opposition to President Clinton's proposed measures to restrict tobacco sports sponsorships.
Dole had a rather strange closing comment for the crowd, saying, ``I was here in 1976. Y'all look the same. Thank you.''
ICE CREAM: On lap 270, while his driver, John Andretti, was leading the race, car owner Michael Kranefuss bought ice cream for his crew.
``Hey, it's a hot day and everybody has been working hard,'' Kranefuss said.
Andretti, who won the pole, led four times for 47 laps, but was slowed by a miss in the engine and finished 12th, the last car on the lead lap.
by CNB