ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, May 24, 1996 TAG: 9605240062
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: AUTO RACING NOTES
DATELINE: CONCORD, N.C.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
When NASCAR parked 16 Winston Cup cars in the Charlotte Motor Speedway garage Thursday morning for failing to have strong enough roll cages, it sounded as if a serious scandal had been uncovered.
The cars of Dale Earnhardt and Winston Cup champion Jeff Gordon were involved, as well as those of Sterling Marlin, Bobby Hamilton, Jeff Burton and Ward Burton.
In actuality, it was another one of those much-ado-about-little situations that ended up having little impact other than giving each of the 16 teams a couple of extra hours of work on a hot day.
The problem was uncovered in the Busch Grand National garage Wednesday when the vertical door bars on eight Busch cars were found to be too thin.
``We found that those bars were too thin gauge-wise,'' NASCAR spokesman Kevin Triplett said. The bars are supposed to be .083-inch thick. NASCAR found they were .065 of an inch thick. The difference was said to be less than the thickness of a credit card.
NASCAR levied no fines, but it forced the teams to reinforce the doors with extra vertical bars before allowing the cars on the track.
That prompted some teams to scramble to get parts and welding materials from their shops to the track, but it caused no serious setbacks for teams because the important practices on Thursday were not until the afternoon and evening, and there was plenty of time to get the work done.
NASCAR had checked the bars at Daytona and Talladega, but those were superspeedway cars. These are speedway cars and had not been checked in some time, if ever. Gordon, for instance, had been running his car with the same roll cage for several years.
``Ours was less than five thousandths of a inch under the limit,'' said Ray Evernham, Gordon's crew chief. ``But our shop is just across the street, and the fab shop had a bunch of stuff ready to go.''
``It was just a matter of cutting some tubes and welding them in,'' said David Smith, Earnhardt's crew chief. ``We understand their point of view. I guess we always question the timing of these things.''
The Winston Cup cars of Gordon, Robert Pressley and Steve Grissom had to be reinforced on both sides of the car. The Cup cars of Earnhardt, Marlin, Hamilton, Bill Elliott (Todd Bodine in relief), the Burton brothers, Kenny Wallace, Jimmy Spencer, Wally Dallenbach, Lake Speed, Johnny Benson, Bobby Hillin and Randy MacDonald, and the Busch cars of David Bonnett, Jeff Burton, Hermie Sadler, Joe Bessey, Michael Waltrip, Mark Martin, Marty Ward and Patty Moise had to be reinforced on the right side.
In other racing news:
JARRETT WINS 300 POLE: On a day filled with one-car crashes, Dale Jarrett won the pole for Saturday's Red Dog 300 Grand National race with a speed of 171.996 mph in a Ford Thunderbird.
Jarrett was one of the first qualifiers in the session and thought ``that wasn't going to be to our advantage. But it worked out that it was because I would have gotten spooked by all the other guys spinning out.''
Mike Dillon, Lester Lesneski and Stanton Barrett crashed during their qualifying runs, while Randy Porter, Kevin Simons and Dale Fischlein crashed in practice. None of the drivers was injured.
Behind Jarrett, Dick Trickle won the second starting spot with a speed of 171.619 mph in a Chevy, followed by Grand National points leader David Green in a Chevy at 171.614, Sadler in a Chevy at 171.412 and Randy LaJoie in a Chevy at 171.276.
Thirty-two cars qualified or received provisional starting spots Thursday, while the final 10 spots will go to the top-10 finishers in today's Red Dog Challenge Race, which begins at 2 p.m.
Among the 24 drivers in the race are Joe Nemechek, Ward Burton, Kenny Wallace, David Bonnett, Terry Labonte, Tommy Houston, Steve Grissom and Doug Heveron.
SECOND-ROUND QUALIFYING: The second round of qualifying for Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 was a non-event Thursday, with only three cars participating.
Those drivers - Brett Bodine, Ted Musgrave and Sadler - ran in the session and none was fast enough to win one of the 38 qualifying positions.
Five provisional starting spots went to ex-champion Rusty Wallace, Bodine, Musgrave, Dave Marcis and Elton Sawyer.
STEWART BACKS OUT: In the wake of teammate Scott Brayton's death, Tony Stewart scrapped his plans to drive in both the Red Dog 300 Grand National race here Saturday and the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday.
Stewart had planned to drive a Ranier-Walsh Pontiac Grand Prix here, but Brayton's death at Indy last week means he'll start from the pole position at Indy. That was enough to prompt him to back off from the Charlotte race.
Stewart, however, will return to the Busch series at Dover next weekend.
CONTRACT EXTENSIONS: Team owner Rick Hendrick announced Wednesday that he had signed contract extensions so that all three of his drivers and sponsors will remain together through the year 2000.
Those signing extensions included Winston Cup champion Jeff Gordon and his crew chief, Ray Evernham; driver Ken Schrader and his sponsor, Budweiser; as well as engine builder Randy Dorton and car builder Eddie Dickerson.
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines KEYWORDS: AUTO RACINGby CNB