ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 11, 1996 TAG: 9603110068
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HAMPTON, GA.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
Dale Earnhardt returned to Atlanta Motor Speedway with the same black Chevrolet Monte Carlo that won November's race here, and it produced the same results Sunday.
Earnhardt won Sunday's Purolator 500 by 4.17 seconds over Terry Labonte, leading 136 of 328 laps Sunday to notch his second victory in four Winston Cup races this season. Jeff Gordon was third for a 1-2-3 sweep by Chevys. Ernie Irvan and Jeremy Mayfield were fourth and fifth, respectively, in Fords.
The subplot of Sunday's race was the continuing aerodynamics controversy between the Fords and the Chevys. It prompted a nasty argument among Chevy driver Labonte, his crew chief, Gary DeHart, and NASCAR official Steve Peterson on pit road after the race.
At least two people who saw the dispute said Labonte threw his water bottle at a NASCAR official, but NASCAR spokesman Kevin Triplett said he could not confirm anything more than a verbal confrontation. Labonte was unavailable for comment because he already had left the track when news of the incident reached reporters in the garage.
Labonte and DeHart were upset because NASCAR chose their car, and not Earnhardt's car, to take to the Lockheed wind tunnel in Marietta, Ga., on Monday and Tuesday for comparison aerodynamic tests with the Ford of Rusty Wallace and the Pontiac of Bobby Hamilton.
Triplett said NASCAR would investigate and review the post-race confrontation, but officials likely would have no further announcements for several days because of the wind-tunnel tests.
One reason Earnhardt's car wasn't chosen, Triplett said, was that it was the same car NASCAR took to the wind tunnel in the fall.
``I told [NASCAR] just to pull the [wind-tunnel] numbers up from last year, because it's the same car,'' Earnhardt said. ``We're proud to be able to come back with the same car and do the same thing we did in the fall. We were not as dominant as we were then, but it was just a little bit different complexion of a race.''
Labonte, who led 100 laps, seemed to be Earnhardt's match most of the afternoon, but the final round of pit stops made the difference.
Labonte was about 1.4 seconds ahead of Earnhardt just before the final stops around lap 295. When they returned to speed on the track, Earnhardt was up by about 3.6 seconds. Labonte's stop was timed at 21.8 seconds; Earnhardt's crew finished its work in 19.7 seconds.
``We had a great pit stop there at the end,''' Earnhardt said. ``I knew when I came down the front straightaway and Terry was just rolling off pit road that we had a great stop.''
``We came up a little short,'' Labonte said. ``We had some lugnuts jam up on that last pit stop and lost some ground. The spoiler flew off of [Hut Stricklin's] car and hit our front end and busted it all up. After we got the front end busted, we weren't nearly as good.''
And the damage from the spoiler was the genesis of the pit-road dispute.
Labonte and DeHart wanted to know why NASCAR decided to take a Chevy with front-body damage to the wind tunnel to compare with an undamaged Ford and an undamaged Pontiac.
They reportedly were unable to get any answers from Peterson or other NASCAR officials.
``Of the three Chevrolets that finished up front, I don't understand why they picked our car with a danged big hole in the front of it,'' DeHart said. ``I'm trying to get some answers from them right now. Nobody on pit road seems to have the answers.''
Triplett described the confrontation this way: ``The crew chief ... objected in a high-octave manner. What we had was an extremely heated exchange with the crew chief getting the better end of the verbal confrontation.''
As for Labonte's role, Triplett said, ``You can also put Mr.Labonte down about disagreeing with the choice. It was not as much an altercation with the driver as it was a discussion between the crew chief and one of our officials.''
Triplett said he was unaware of any objects being thrown.
Triplett dismissed the contention Labonte's car was significantly affected by the front-end damage. He said a NASCAR transponder on Labonte's car showed ``in the closing laps of the race, it was turning faster laps'' than Earnhardt's car.
``After checking the car, there was not enough damage for us to not to do what we need to do in the wind tunnel.''
Triplett also said Earnhardt's car had right-side damage from a bump with Dick Trickle's car and that damage ``would have altered the integrity of the test. The damage to the [No.]3 car was worse than the damage to the [No.]5 car. The damage to the 5 car will not alter our test.''
Labonte wasn't buying that explanation after struggling with his car's handling.
``That made it push real bad after that,'' he said. ``We tried to tape [the hole] up, but it came back untaped. We got it partially fixed, but not all the way.''
Meanwhile, in the Ford camp, the story was the same: The Chevys ruled again at Atlanta, and the Fords still need help.
``We told [NASCAR] that before,'' said Irvan, who led six laps in his best run of the 1996 season. ``They're going to confiscate some cars and they're going to see why we got our butt kicked. Maybe they'll finally do something.''
LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Dale Earnhardt's crew services the No.3 Chevroletby CNBduring Earnhardt's final pit stop at the Purolator 500 on Sunday.
color. KEYWORDS: AUTO RACING