ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 19, 1996 TAG: 9605200142
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-6 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: AUTO RACING NOTES
DATELINE: CONCORD, N.C.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
The next few races will tell, but Chevrolet teams are concerned that NASCAR's recent roof-height concession to the Ford teams has shifted the balance of power in the Winston Cup series.
``If you look at the lap times, there wasn't a Chevy close to what the Fords ran on the track,'' Jeff Gordon said after winning The Winston Select pole for Chevrolet. ``They have got plenty more than they need and the times are going to show it.
``I don't know what's going to happen in the race, but I guarantee you all day long the Fords were faster than us in practice. I think they've definitely got some help now.''
``We're about to get our butts kicked,'' said Ray Evernham, Gordon's crew chief.
The next four races - at Charlotte, Dover, Pocono and Michigan - are on tracks that accentuate any aerodynamic difference. But the Ford camps are reserving judgment on whether the half-inch lower roof height granted by NASCAR will give them the help they need. Fords have won only three of the season's 10 Winston Cup races.
``The question is: Is it enough,'' said Dan Rivard, Ford's motorsports chief. ``From everything we see, it's about 60 percent of what we need. The bottom line is being competitive on the race track.''
TEXAS UPDATE: Texas Motor Speedway is 70 percent finished, and ``it doesn't take any imagination to know it's a speedway now,'' said Eddie Gossage, the new track's general manager.
The grandstands are being built, the retaining walls are up for the most part and the track will be paved within a month, he said. The Roanoke, Texas, track should be completed in late summer or early fall.
Gossage said he still hopes the track will get a race in 1996, but with each passing day the chances grow slim because of the necessity of selling tickets and all of the other advance work required.
Once a race is scheduled, Gossage has no doubts it will be a sellout, even with more than 150,000 seats.
``We've got 45,000 people on our ticket list, and we don't have a date on the schedule and we haven't advertised,'' he said. ``And from our experience, each customer buys four tickets apiece. So maybe we're sold out already.''
THE 1997 SCHEDULE: Look for changes in the 1997 Winston Cup schedule, but not wholesale changes.
Mike Helton, NASCAR's vice president of competition, said the situation at North Wilkesboro Speedway is ``the first domino that has a chance of causing some changes to be made, and in addition to that, the addition of [Ontario] California to the schedule in 1997. But whether or not that's going to develop a great difference in the schedule, I don't think so.
``There's certainly nothing beyond a few changes that will make 1997 much different.''
NASCAR usually releases the schedule for the next year at its championship banquet in New York in early December, but Helton said NASCAR may be able ``to produce a schedule maybe a little earlier than we have in the past.''
LENGTH: Medium: 61 linesby CNB