ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 21, 1996 TAG: 9604220072
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: AUTO RACING NOTES
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
As Terry Labonte establishes a consecutive race streak of 514 Winston Cup events in the Goody's 500 at Martinsville Speedway today, another long streak came to an end Saturday in the crucible of second-day qualifying.
Until Saturday, veteran car owner Bud Moore had made every Winston Cup race since 1975 - more than 600 events. And his car never had failed to qualify for a race he entered, although he was disqualified before a 1964 race here after a dispute over brakes.
But Moore and driver Wally Dallenbach packed up and went home after failing to find the speed to make today's race.
Dallenbach was 42nd fastest among 43 drivers vying for 32 starting spots. And Moore was aced out of one of the four provisional starting spots by other car owners who have more car owner points.
The competition in qualifying was so intense, Dallenbach was only about a half-second slower than pole winner Ricky Craven. And that was after Dallenbach slowed down by about two-tenths of a second on Saturday compared to Friday.
``We'll just move on,'' said Dallenbach. ``I did the best I could. We couldn't get the car to stick on cold tires. We just lacked a little bit. It's not the end of the world. We did all we could do.''
Said Moore, ``If we're going to miss one, I'd rather miss this one. Wally's done a hell of a job. Yesterday he just over-drove the car a little bit in the corner and got a little bit high. We would have made the field yesterday. I'm not mad at Wally because he was trying as hard as he could and he was doing a helluva job.''
Dallenbach had plenty of company in his misery. Other drivers who went home early were Elton Sawyer, Randy MacDonald, Steve Grissom, Dick Trickle, Bobby Hillin and Ward Burton.
Provisional starting spots went to Ted Musgrave, Ernie Irvan, Robert Pressley and Hut Stricklin.
For Burton and his car owner, Bill Davis, it was a second straight missed race after winning the pole at Darlington last month.
``It's unbelievable,'' said Davis. ``As much momentum as we felt like we had going into this year, it's hard to believe we're struggling like this.''
Even some drivers who made the race had to sweat out the second round. Brett Bodine stood on his Friday speed and watched from the backstretch to see if someone could bump him out of his starting spot.
``It's as tough as it comes,'' Bodine said. ``When you've got everything you own and everything you've worked for on the line, this stuff is pretty important.''
UNAPPROVED CLUTCH: NASCAR inspectors found a too-small clutch on the No.30 Pontiac Grand Prix driven by rookie Johnny Benson.
``We took it,'' NASCAR spokesman Kevin Triplett said. ``And we'll probably have a decision on what we'll do tomorrow.''
NASCAR could have disallowed Benson's Friday qualifying speed [he starts 18th], but ``in our determination, it wasn't performance-enhancing enough to make enough difference,'' Triplett said.
YOUNG WINS ALL-PRO: Ron Young of Conyers, Ga., won the Goody's 200 for NASCAR All-Pro stock cars Saturday when leader Shane Hall ran out of gas as the green flag flew for a restart with two laps to go.
``I hate he had bad luck, but we've been waiting a long time,'' said Young. It was his first win in the series.
``Believe it or not, we ran out of gas,'' said Hall, who led 120 laps. ``We ran three or four laps before qualifying [as did the entire field] and we didn't have a chance to top off the tank. That could have been the difference.''
Rick Crawford was second, followed by Wayne Anderson, Bobby Hamilton and Mike Cope, of Trinity, N.C., who recorded his third top-five finish in the three races run this season.
THOMPSON HONORED: Martinsville Speedway celebrated Dick Thompson's 30th anniversary with the track by naming the press box in his honor. Thompson, the track's Vice President for Corporate Communications, had a surprise party thrown for him by track president Clay Campbell on Friday evening.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 linesby CNB