ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 4, 1996 TAG: 9603040126
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
THE DEFENDING WINSTON Cup champion gets back in the race at Richmond.
A masterpiece on the track Sunday at Richmond International Raceway turned muddy in the final 50 laps, paving the way for Jeff Gordon's first victory of the 1996 NASCAR season.
After running more than 250 laps without a yellow flag, and staging the kind of competitive race that made NASCAR its reputation, the best drivers in Winston Cup managed to muck up things with five cautions in the last 50 laps.
Gordon took the lead during the first of those five yellows, jumping from fourth to first with quick pit work. He used the next four yellows to preserve his lead. And having the lead was no sure thing Sunday.
Dale Jarrett, who led 23 laps, finished second, followed by the three Jack Roush drivers - Ted Musgrave, Jeff Burton and Mark Martin.
Bobby Hamilton, who led the most laps (129), was sixth, followed by Rusty Wallace, pole winner Terry Labonte, Ricky Rudd and Bill Elliott. Three other cars finished on the lead lap.
``You guys are awesome!'' Gordon told his crew as he took the checkered flag. ``You did it in the pits, boys. You did it in the pits.''
Afterward, in the press box, Gordon said: ``This will totally turn things around for the morale of the team.''
He had started the season with a 42nd-place finish in the Daytona 500 and was 40th at Rockingham.
``I think this is going to give us some momentum,'' Gordon said. ``Last year, when we got down, we were able to turn around and come right back, except this time it took two weeks to do it, two very bad weeks.''
Some tracks in the Winston Cup series seem to spawn better racing than others, and Richmond is one of them. This was a delightfully entertaining race, especially from lap 85 to lap 350, when there were no yellow flags.
As Gordon's crew chief, Ray Evernham, put it: ``Today was just an awfully good Winston Cup race. It was just a textbook race.''
There were 25 lead changes among 11 drivers in the 400-lap event, and many of those passes came at speed.
Consider laps 166 through 350.
When Elliott, who was playing a gas mileage game, pitted on lap 251, Hamilton took the lead. But Hamilton, who was best during the early part of a run, lost the lead to Wallace on lap 257.
Wallace was on top for 23 laps, until he was reeled in by Jarrett.
Jarrett led 19 laps, but he was tracked down by Burton, who moved in front on lap 299, until Jarrett passed him 13 laps later.
No one ran away from the field, and different drivers were strong at different times.
Gordon, for instance, led 60 of the first 200 laps. And he was motoring along in the lead just before halfway when he became mired in traffic.
``Traffic was a real big issue,'' he said. ``It wasn't that I was stuck. I didn't want to use up my tires getting past them. The next thing I know, these guys are blowing past me and I'm back in fifth.''
By lap 260, Gordon was all the way back to eighth.
``I'm sitting there like, `What is going on?''' Gordon said.
He asked about his lap times. He was told they were the same as they had been earlier. Evernham kept asking Gordon if there was anything the crew could do to make the car better.
``I don't know what it is,'' Gordon replied on the radio. ``Because I feel as good as I did earlier.''
``Everyone else is better,'' Evernham replied. ``You need to go faster.''
Gordon pitted on lap 314 while running about sixth. His car worked better after about 30 laps on a new set of tires, and he had moved up to fourth when the yellow flag flew on lap 350 for Darrell Waltrip's frontstretch crash.
That's when Gordon's pit crew boosted him into the lead. After that, no one could do anything with him. And there were no long stretches of racing to put him to the test.
Gordon said his car was better on the long runs, but it was plenty good enough on the final series of short runs during the last 50 laps.
``I got a little bit nervous there at the end, having all those short runs on new tires,'' he said. ``I didn't know if I could hold those guys off. But that shows you how things can change and really turn around.
``I didn't think we were as good on restarts as a lot of guys, but for whatever reason, that last set of tires seemed to be really good on the short runs.''
Evernham was asked for the speed of that final race-winning pit stop.
``I don't know,'' he said. ``I dropped my watch.''
``It didn't matter,'' Gordon said. ``It got us out front.''
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. Jeff Gordon takes the checkered flag Sunday atby CNBRichmond's Pontiac Excitement 400. 2. Jeff Gordon celebrates his
first victory of the 1996 Winston Cup season. color. KEYWORDS: AUTO RACING