ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 28, 1996 TAG: 9604290117
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-7 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: AUTO RACING NOTES
DATELINE: TALLADEGA, ALA.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
Al Unser Jr. muscled past Sterling Marlin with four laps to go Saturday and then held off Robby Gordon to win the International Race of Champions at Talladega Superspeedway.
A crash on the fifth lap took out half of the 12-car field.
Scott Pruett was third, followed by Marlin and Terry Labonte.
``It was sad that accident at the beginning of the race took out half the field, but when there's a crash up front like that, it's hard to get through all that stuff,'' Unser said.
The accident occurred when Marlin tried to pass Dale Earnhardt going into turn three and their cars came together, sending Earnhardt spinning into the pack. Jeff Gordon, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, Johnny Benson and Tom Kendall also were involved. No one was hurt.
Said Earnhardt, ``I got turned around so quick, I knew it was gonna be a hell of a wreck. I hit pretty hard, but not that hard. I don't really know what happened.''
The race was stopped and a number of drivers had tires changed, including Unser.
``Dale just barely caught my left rear when he came up into the traffic, and all it did was pop my tire,'' Unser said.
After getting past Marlin on lap 35 of the 38-lap race, Unser held off Gordon by driving with his mirror.
``The second-place guy dictated where I was going,'' he said.
``Anything he did, I was going to stay in front of his car. He tried to do everything he could to get out from behind me, and I wasn't going to let him.''
STEELE WINS ARCA RACE: Although Tim Steele led 75 of the 117 laps in the ARCA race, he had to survive a wild final lap to win the race.
Andy Hillenburg muscled past Steele on the backstretch of the last lap, but Steele drafted past Hillenburg coming into the trioval. Mark Thompson got past Hillenburg in a photo finish for second.
There were no serious accidents in the race.
ARCA PRESIDENT KILLED: Robert John Loga, 55, the president of the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA), was fatally injured in an automobile accident Friday just outside the fourth turn of the speedway.
There are no designated traffic lanes on the wide expanses of asphalt and concrete outside the track and Loga's car was T-boned by another vehicle traveling at about 55 mph.
Two other passengers in the car were treated for minor injuries, but Loga suffered a fractured pelvis, fractured ribs and had to have his spleen removed during emergency surgery after the accident. He passed away early Saturday afternoon.
DYNO CHAPTER TWO: NASCAR's fiasco with the portable chassis dynamometer Friday didn't stop Ricky Rudd from taking advantage of the new machine.
Rudd, with NASCAR's permission, tested carburetors on the dynamometer Saturday morning. He was not intimidated that Winston Cup Director Gary Nelson had damaged Ernie Irvan's pole-winning engine on the machine Friday afternoon.
But when Irvan's crew chief, Larry McReynolds, saw Rudd's car on the machine, he came over to Rudd's transporter and said, ``Ricky, are you out of your mind?''
Rudd explained the method to his madness.
``We've used it before,'' he said. ``We know what we're doing. Several teams have been using this recently.''
Rudd saw it as an opportunity to test something he otherwise would have had to test during the final practice Saturday afternoon.
And his crew chief, Richard Broome, saw it as a chance to help Nelson and help the manufacturer of the dynamometer, which he said had gotten a bad rap because of Friday's fiasco.
Irvan's car owner, Robert Yates, was not pleased with the episode.
``They're just trying to sell dynamometers,'' he said.
SECOND ROUND: Joe Nemechek was the fastest of several drivers who improved their speeds Saturday in a second round of time trials that saw most of the regulars make the race.
Nemechek reached 190.867 mph in his Chevrolet Monte Carlo, which would have given him the 12th starting spot had he made that lap Friday. He'll start 26th in today's race.
Provisional starting spots went to Darrell Waltrip (champion's provisional), Mike Wallace, Kyle Petty, Bobby Hamilton and Brett Bodine.
Bobby Hillin, Chad Little and Phil Barkdoll failed to make the race.
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Al Unser Jr. leads a pack of cars through the finalby CNBlap of Saturday's International Race of Champions in Talladega, Ala.
Unser won the race with Robby Gordon (2) finishing second. Following
them was Scott Pruett (10) in third and Sterling Marlin, who ended
up in fourth.