Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9509290045
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
More than twice as long as the pros, it seems.
North Carolina Motor Speedway held a media pit stop contest Tuesday and the winning time by a team of six neophytes and one experienced crewman (serving as jackman) was 26.28 seconds.
Earlier, Jeff Gordon's crew had taken 11.2 seconds. And that was despite a stuck lug nut.
The slowest of the five media teams took 46.56 seconds to change two tires - clearly a team laps down. Each media team was given five minutes of practice and had one of Gordon's crewmen as their coach and jackman.
Gordon's team is the defending champion of the annual Unocal pit crew contest at the Rock, which will be held this year on Saturday, Oct. 21 at 11 a.m., the day before the AC-Delco 500.
Unocal announced Tuesday that it was increasing the winning team's purse from $7,600 to $10,000 and had upped the overall purse (which pays the top 10 teams) to $27,600.
Then, on Wednesday, it was back to business at The Rock, with a number of teams on the one-mile track for testing, including Winston Cup drivers Mark Martin and Jeff Burton and Grand National drivers Jeff Fuller and David Green.
Improvements at the track over the summer include a new Winston Cup garage, Goodyear tire building, scoring stand and infield media center.
WILKESBORO SPEC-TACLE: This weekend, North Wilkesboro Speedway is bound to have its most interesting Saturday during a Winston Cup event in many a year.
Not only is Ernie Irvan slated to make his comeback in the SuperTruck race, NASCAR may see its first Japanese driver
compete.
Irvan should have no trouble making the field; he was one of the fastest drivers in practice at Martinsville Speedway last weekend before rain and the rules conspired to keep him out of the truck race. But Kenji Momota, who doubles as a motorsports journalist, may not have such an easy time of it.
The track has received 45 entries and there are only 32 starting spots. Jerry Glanville, however, called to withdraw from the event because of a commitment to a football telecast.
The truck race is at 1 p.m. Saturday and general admission tickets are $25 each, with children under 12 admitted free with an adult.
The Winston Cup race is at 1 p.m. Sunday and the purse was increased this week to $922,963. Combined with the truck purse of $156,705, the track - NASCAR's oldest - will have its first $1 million weekend.
SLIM JIM MOVES: Slim Jim, sponsors of the No. 44 Chevrolet Monte Carlos driven by David Green and owned by Bobby Labonte, is moving.
The Grand National team sponsor has signed a three-year agreement with driver Jason Keller, 25, of Greenville, S.C.
Labonte is scaling back and plans to take over as driver of his own cars, but only run a limited Busch schedule next year. Slim Jim wanted to run the full schedule. Green, meanwhile, is considering several Winston Cup opportunities and is said to be a candidate for Bud Moore's No. 15 Ford Thunderbird.
by CNB