ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 25, 1996 TAG: 9603270102
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: AUTO RACING NOTES
DATELINE: DARLINGTON, S. C.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
Sunday's TranSouth Financial 400 was not the wreck-strewn affair of 1995, but there was still plenty of trouble on the Darlington Raceway oval.
The yellow flag flew 11 times for 56 laps, but eight of the caution periods were for single-car incidents. And the biggest wreck involved only three cars.
Pole-winner Ward Burton was involved in that one, and had the hardest crash of the day. He slammed head-on into the inside wall on the frontstretch after Ernie Irvan was tapped and spun in front of him.
Burton said Irvan ``got tapped by somebody. I tried to avoid him and there was only one way to go - low. That didn't work either. Out again.''
After winning the pole Friday, Burton saw his weekend unravel. He crashed in Saturday's final practice and his crew had to work overtime to repair the car, only to see him crash again and finish 38th in a 41-car field.
Other crash victims included John Andretti, who had his third DNF in five races, Michael Waltrip, Ken Schrader, Irvan, Robert Pressley (while leading), Wally Dallenbach and Joe Nemechek.
OL' MARCIS: Dale Jarrett wasn't the only driver to tangle with Dave Marcis on Sunday.
Race winner Jeff Gordon also had a close encounter with the 55-year-old veteran.
Gordon said it comes with the territory. ``I'm always patient when I'm around Dave,'' he said. ``Dave does things his way. When you're a rookie, you learn how to race Dave Marcis. If you don't get rubbed by him every once and awhile, then you haven't been Winston Cup racing.''
EARNHARDT OFF: Dale Earnhardt had a poor performance, and his usual quick departure from the race track was even quicker. He let other members of his team do his talking after his 14th-place finish.
``We've got to check everything over and see what was wrong,'' crew chief David Smith said. ``We were off, the car was off, the set-up was off. It was just one of those days.''
THE OVERACHIEVER: Bobby Labonte, with his second-place finish, was the overachiever of the day.
He was getting the best fuel mileage, and that allowed him to take the lead on lap 89 when a yellow flag flew and he was the only driver who hadn't made a regularly scheduled pit stop.
Labonte led for 38 laps, and then hung around with the front runners the rest of the race. At the end, he began to run out of fuel.
``With about eight laps to go, it started running out of fuel in the straightaways,'' he said. ``I had to half-throttle it the rest of the way, but the tires were so gone, it didn't make any difference.
``We kind of had our rally caps on today. We changed four shocks and two springs [before the race], and that brought me a little luck this morning.''
STILL PUSHING: Rick Mast and his team still haven't sorted out the severe push in the new Pontiac Grand Prix. He finished 19th, three laps down.
``It was pushing all day,'' he said. ``How many races is this? Five? Five races. Five pushes. We're consistent there. We've been doing a lot of weird stuff to the car, trying to get it to stop pushing. We ain't stopped it yet. We've got a ways to go yet.''
LENGTH: Medium: 63 linesby CNB