ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 27, 1996 TAG: 9605280138
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: HOLIDAY
DATELINE: RADFORD
SOURCE: CHAD WILLIS STAFF WRITER
The words controversy and auto racing seem to go hand in hand. The Budweiser 300 at New River Valley Speedway had its share of each Saturday night.
Rodney Cundiff (Boones Mill) took the lead on lap 199 and held off Tink Reedy for the victory in the caution-extended 211-lap Late Model Stock race. The win was Cundiff's second of the season.
Cundiff inherited the lead when Tony McGuire (Roanoke) and race leader Jeff Agnew (Floyd) got together in a lap 198 restart, an incident that put Agnew in the turn 4 wall and sent McGuire to the rear of the lead lap.
"I couldn't really see what happened on the restart,'' Cundiff said. "Everyone got kind of bunched up and I got hit so hard from behind it almost knocked my teeth out. I'm just happy to win the race, no matter how it happened.''
Video replays showed that Agnew had failed to lead the field to green at the appropriate location, a claim McGuire first made against Agnew when a similar incident between the two occured four weeks ago.
"Jeff's been playing games in his starts all year,'' McGuire said. "He slows down before you get a chance to take off. He knew if he did that I wouldn't have the opportunity to pass him.
"I decided I was just going to leave it on the floorboard and see what happened. Maybe next time when we get one [of the green flags], he'll go.''
Agnew maintained the fault in the accident fell squarely on McGuire's shoulders.
"Tony just flat out turned into me and put me in the wall. That's all there was to it,'' Agnew said. "He lines up three or four car lengths back and gets a running start at you on the green. He does it every time."
Agnew took the lead on lap 56 when leader and pole-sitter Phillip Morris fell off the pace with a flat right rear tire.
Agnew led until lap 177, when McGuire pulled alongside and nosed him out at the start-finish line. Agnew regained the lead the next lap, as the two dueled side by side until the fateful restart.
Reedy finished second with Chad Harris in third. McGuire, the final car on the lead lap, finished fourth and Johnny Rumley placed fifth. Agnew, the division points leader, finished 14th.
In the 35-lap Limited Sportsman race, Tam Topham (Wytheville) captured his fifth checkered flag of the season. Topham led flag to flag for the third time this year.
Topham has now finished either first or second in the division's seven races. Eddie Walls finished second and last week's winner, Mark Akers, placed third.
Christiansburg's Tommy Allie won his fifth race of the season in the 25-lap Pure Stock race, edging out defending track champion Randy Taylor. Ronnie Vaught finished third.
Kevin Snyder (Christiansburg) won his second race in a row and third of the season in the 25-lap Mini Stock race. Ray Sowers came in second and Robert Cox crossed the line third.
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines KEYWORDS: AUTO RACINGby CNB