Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, October 2, 1995 TAG: 9510020074
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
For a NASCAR race every driver finished - a race interrupted by only two yellow flags - there sure were some angry drivers Sunday afternoon at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
Mark Martin was not one of them. He won the Holly Farms 400 by eighty-eight-hundredths of a second over Rusty Wallace after leading 126 of the 400 laps.
Ernie Irvan was positively joyous. He finished sixth and proved to himself and some 60,000 fans that he still has the skills to compete in the Winston Cup series.
And Jeff Gordon was in a pretty good mood. He finished third and extended his Winston Cup championship lead to 302 points over second-place Dale Earnhardt, who finished ninth.
But Ricky Rudd, who finished fifth, was in a rage, charging NASCAR officials had stolen the race from him. Dale Jarrett was not particularly happy after he was spun into the wall by a lapped car late in the race when he was running third.
And Kyle Petty and Jimmy Spencer had steam coming from their helmets during the race.
But everybody still was running when the checkered flag waved for Martin at the end. Spencer finished 36th and last - 10 laps behind.
Oblivious to all of the various problems was Martin, who won his third race of the season on a track where his Ford Thunderbird usually is not the strongest car.
``This win is kind of a surprise to us, and it feels real good to pull it off,'' Martin said. ``I'm going to expect to run good when we come back next time.
``Today, the car was fast on new tires and old tires. A lot of times, the best we can hope for is to be fast on new or old tires. We got lucky today. We hit the setup that worked all the time.''
There was a full complement of traffic on the track throughout the race, but Martin said he had no trouble with it.
``Traffic can give you fits when your car is not handling, but my car was so good today it wasn't a problem,'' he said. ``If I really wanted to pass a guy, I'd just abuse the tires to get by. But with a lot of guys, I didn't even have to do that.''
Martin made the race-winning pass on lap 346, diving under Jarrett coming out of turn 4. It was clear sailing from there until Jarrett's wall-banger on lap 368. That put Wallace on Martin's tail when green-flag racing resumed with 26 laps to go.
``He started out right behind me on that restart,'' Martin said. ``I had to settle down there and concentrate and put some distance between us, so if we encountered any lapped traffic or encountered any problems, we wouldn't lose the race. There at the end, the car probably ran as good or better than it did all day.''
``He really beat me at the end,'' Wallace said.
Rudd, however, was certain he could have beaten Martin if NASCAR had not intervened.
The fateful moment came during the final round of pit stops on lap 370.
A crewman only got four of five lug nuts on the left-front tire and the NASCAR pit inspector spotted it. Rudd was ordered back in the pit to put on the last nut.
``I've never ever, since I've been racing, had to come back in and get lug nuts. I've never known any team that had to come back in for one [lug nut] off at the short tracks,'' Rudd said. ``Terry Labonte's car is sitting up there at the gas pumps right now with one or two lug nuts off. I tried to get ESPN to take a picture of it and they wouldn't do it.
``I think it was pretty obvious NASCAR didn't want to see us win a race,'' he said. ``I had Mark. I was just sitting there waiting for him, just watching him.''
Rudd, however, wasn't the only one nailed for missing lug nuts. The same NASCAR inspector also called Rick Mast back into the pits. The driver from Rockbridge Baths, Va., said he'd never seen it happen before, either.
And Spencer also was called in for missing lug nuts, prompting a stream of furious language, much of it unprintable, that also reflected his shock and surprise at NASCAR's call.
Petty's problem wasn't lug nuts but speeding on pit road. He was called in for a stop-and-go penalty, then called back in again. And again.
The third penalty may have had something to do with a report that Petty directed an obscene gesture toward the NASCAR control tower after the second penalty.
``I'll be [penalized for] speeding next week after the comments I made,'' Rudd said. ``I think that's obvious.''
``Any underlying thought that we don't want Mr. Rudd to win a race is unfounded and unfair,'' said Kevin Triplett, a NASCAR spokesman. ``The call was not made from the tower. And we brought other cars in.''
Triplett said NASCAR was concerned teams might be leaving one nut off to speed up pit stops, adding, ``Safety issues are not places to cut corners. We do not do it for political reasons.''
He did not dispute one of Labonte's wheels did not have all five lug nuts, but said, ``We know we can't catch them all.''
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB