ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 24, 1996 TAG: 9603250062
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: AUTO RACING
DATELINE: DARLINGTON, S.C.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER
It wasn't that long ago that Bobby Hamilton was sitting at an interview table before the 1992 Winston Cup banquet in New York, eloquently describing the frustration of being a back marker.
Hamilton had been rookie of the year in 1991 and had finished in the top 10 four times. But his performance slipped in the second year, with only two top 10s, and he had talked of how maddening it was to push his car to the absolute limit, only to watch helplessly as the field pulled away from him.
Things would get worse for Hamilton before they got better. He bounced around among three teams in 1993, and ran only 15 races. In 1994, with Felix Sabates, Hamilton had only one top 10 finish.
Petty Enterprises, meanwhile, was having similar luck. After Richard Petty retired in 1992, Rick Wilson and Wally Dallenbach tried and failed to fill his shoes. John Andretti took over in mid-1994 and showed tremendous promise, but left for another team in 1995.
That's when Hamilton and Petty joined forces - a struggling driver hoping to boost the fortunes of a struggling team.
The result has been impressive. Hamilton had 10 top-10 finishes in 1995, won more than $800,000 and finished 14th in points. It was the best season for the Level Cross, N.C.-based team since 1987.
``You know, what we went through before Bobby came here is not easy, but it probably checks your character more than winning does,'' said team manager Dale Inman, who's been with Petty nearly all of his career. ``And you work harder when you're losing than when you're winning. And no matter what, if you stay in it long enough, the tough times are going to hit you. It's going to hit everybody who's ever been on top.''
So how could Hamilton gel with Petty when Dallenbach and Wilson couldn't? And why couldn't Hamilton succeed in his other cars the way he has in Petty's familiar red and blue Pontiac Grand Prixs?
One obvious and frequently cited reason is that Hamilton and crew chief Robbie Loomis communicate well. But Loomis said it's more than that.
``Each team out here in the garage has their own way of thinking about the principles of setting up their car,'' he said Saturday after the morning practice. ``When they go to the race track, they approach that car with those theories, and that affects how they choose setups, weight percentages, springs, shocks, pannard bars and trailing arms.
``Every little thing affects the other, and everybody's got their own way of doing it. When you see a different driver go to a different car and all of a sudden they start doing better, I think it's often because his driving style fits their way of thinking.''
But it's more than that, Hamilton said.
``Everybody else I worked for, I had to drive the car like somebody else liked it, or I had to drive the car the way the crew chief had it set up for somebody else,'' Hamilton said. ``The setups were somebody else's deal. And I'd swallow it. I'd say, `Okay, that's no big deal.'
``But in order to be a contender, you have to have a setup you're comfortable with,'' he said. ``We've been running stuff that's not even supposed to work, but I'm comfortable with it. I don't care what the car's got under it. And Robbie don't care. And Dale Inman don't care. And Richard don't care. As long as it works for me.
``They might say, `Ohhh, we've never run anything like that before.' But we have no set numbers. We just do what it takes.
``There are a lot of people who walk around the garage area worried about what everybody else has got. We don't even ask because it don't fit me, anyway.''
The result has been that Hamilton and the Petty Pontiac are back in the spotlight on a regular basis for the first time since Petty retired.
Picking up where he left off in 1995, Hamilton led at Rockingham late in the race until Dale Earnhardt spun him. He started third and finished sixth at Richmond. He started sixth at Atlanta, but finished 16th.
``We're always attracting some kind of attention,'' Hamilton said. ``If we don't qualify good, we race good. If we don't race good, usually we've qualified good. And we've been involved in some controversy.
``When there's controversy with Richard's car, the attention really goes up,'' he said. ``I think the race fans just go nuts when anybody does anything to this particular race car. It's fun to be part of that.
``Until I drove this car, I never got much fan recognition. Now it's pretty good.''
LENGTH: Medium: 82 linesby CNB