ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 6, 1996 TAG: 9605060152
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SONOMA, CALIF. -
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
RUSTY WALLACE IS RIDING high, although his car was a little bit low.
Rusty Wallace's fun-filled California weekend ended, ultimately, in victory, but also with a slap on the wrist when NASCAR fined him $25,000 after he won the Save Mart Supermarkets 300 at Sears Point International Raceway.
More than an hour after his Victory Lane ceremony, Wallace was in street clothes, relaxing on a golf cart and signing autographs outside his race car transporter, when he got wind of trouble from NASCAR's post-race inspection.
His car was too low. When the Ford passed under the height bar, it was about 3/16ths of an inch lower than the 51-inch minimum height rule.
Crew chief Robin Pemberton at first seemed unconcerned.
``The jack bolt plate is bent,'' he said. ``We're a little bit low. But you can't be perfect when you're getting the pieces beat off it.''
But by then, reporters had begun milling around the NASCAR transporter after being alerted that NASCAR would have an announcement. Second-place finisher Mark Martin was already gone, but his car owner, Jack Roush, and crew chief, Steve Hmiel, were advised to stick around.
When Pemberton told Wallace, the driver headed to the NASCAR transporter, only to be stopped at the door by Buster Auton, who had been delegated to guard the inner sanctum while NASCAR officials pondered what to do.
Wallace eventually was allowed in. And when he emerged about 30 minutes later, he said: ``Got fined. Won the race.''
A few moments later, he expounded on the issue. ``They [NASCAR] know we didn't screw them at all in any way. But since its low, there has to be a fine. What's upsetting is that it taints the win. We know and they know we didn't do anything to make the car go faster with this.''
NASCAR spokesman Kevin Triplett said: ``We fined him $25,000. He keeps the win, he keeps the points. We did not feel this was a competition enhancing situation. We did not feel this was intentional. But the car was too low.
``The jack screw plate on the right front was damaged and the shock was bottoming out. With the jostling around here, the right and left turns and off the berms, we feel like the damage we found was the result of that and it was unintentional.''
Wallace said his car ``would have been quicker if it was right.''
But it was quick enough to allow him to snatch the lead from Jeff Gordon on a restart with five laps to go, and then held off Martin and Wally Dallenbach to win by .45 seconds as Fords swept the top three spots.
Dale Earnhardt was fourth in the best Chevrolet Monte Carlo, followed by pole winner Terry Labonte, Gordon, Ricky Rudd, Ken Schrader, Bobby Labonte and Ward Burton. Seventeen other drivers finished on the lead lap.
The pass of Gordon, who had led the previous 12 laps, was the key.
``There wasn't a damn thing I could do, guys,'' Gordon told his crew on the radio after losing the lead. ``I just spun the tires all over the place. I knew this was going to happen. It happened all day on restarts. I tried, but there wasn't anything that was going to make the tires stick.''
Afterward, Wallace said, ``Getting the tires cleaned off was a real key part - getting a lot of grip in the rear tires so when I launched, I wouldn't spin the tires. We were having a bad, bad problem with build-up on the tires.
``I got it all off and Jeff didn't get it as cleaned up as I did. I just got a jump on him, got alongside him and that was the key factor.''
And although things got tense when the NASCAR bigwigs began huddling, their ruling preserved Wallace's first visit to Victory Lane on a road course since 1990 - a dozen road races ago - when he won here.
And it preserved his fond memories of what is annually one of the best road trips of the long NASCAR season.
``I think that coming out here to California - if anybody coming out from the East Coast didn't enjoy themselves this weekend, they're crazy,'' he said. ``The weather was beautiful. Broke the record for drinking beer every damn day I've been out here.
``When you're all doing the same thing all the time on the East Coast, this feels kind of like a mini-vacation for us.
``Even if I hadn't won, I would have still been smiling and, damn, we topped it off with a win.''
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines KEYWORDS: AUTO RACINGby CNB