ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, June 17, 1996 TAG: 9606180053
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RADFORD
SOURCE: CHAD WILLIS STAFF WRITER
When Jeff Agnew first looked over the 1996 New River Valley Speedway schedule, the Floyd driver must have circled June 15 as a must-win race. It wasn't a double-points race or a televised affair. Instead, Saturday night's race carried the flag of his principal sponsor.
Agnew and his sponsors both went home happy as Agnew's Chevrolet Monte Carlo crossed the start-finish line first in the Shelor 100. The victory was Agnew's fifth of the season and snapped a month-long drought for the division's points leader.
For Agnew and his crew, Saturday's finish was the culmination of hours in the garage repairing a problem that developed after a turn 4 restart incident with Tony McGuire in the Budweiser 200 on May 25.
``It feels good to get this car back to running close to as good as we were running in the first four races of the season,'' Agnew said, referring to a streak of four victories for his team. ``Tonight we were kind of lucky because the car was just a little bit off. It takes awhile to get a car back to normal after the front end gets knocked out in a wreck, but the crew has been working hard to correct it.''
Agnew grabbed his third pole of the season and led 106 of 109 laps. He took the lead for good on lap 4 when McGuire, starting on the outside of the first row, was black-flagged for lagging at the initial green flag. Track officials sent McGuire to the rear of the grid, a penalty reportedly discussed in the prerace drivers' meeting.
``It's a shame that Jeff and I can't seem to get a legal restart lately,'' McGuire said. ``It's starting to look like the WWF [World Wrestling Federation] out here with all the decisions being made [by track officials]. I guess what I'm going to have to do from now on is let Jeff go and get a 10 car-length lead before I get into the gas. It's really disappointing, because we obviously had the fastest car out here tonight.''
McGuire wasn't the only driver who felt he had the car to beat.
``Tony had a really good car tonight, maybe the fastest one on the track,'' Agnew said. ``Like I said, we were just a little lucky tonight ... but sometimes that's what it takes out here.''
Agnew was largely untested until a restart on lap 107 positioned Rodney Cundiff for a chance to grab the checkered flag. Cundiff, the recipient of the Curtis Turner Hard Charger award, darted to the inside of Agnew in turn 2 on lap 107 and again in turn 3 on the following lap, both times to no avail.
``I got under him a little, but he was just able to pull away up high and hold us off,'' Cundiff said. ``We actually touched once and I could have knocked him out of there, but I couldn't do that to the man.''
Cundiff finished second and McGuire was third.
In Limited Sportsman action, Tam Topham (Wytheville) continued his dominance of the division, winning his sixth race in nine attempts. Topham led flag to flag in the 35-lap race, beating second-place Bo Howell by a half-dozen car-lengths. Jay McCray finished third, his second consecutive top-three placing.
``The rest of the guys in the division have been catching up to us the past few weeks,'' Topham said. ``We're experiencing a few changes now that the weather is getting warmer. As long as we can stay on top of the changes and the sponsors keep backing us the way they have, we're going to be all right.''
Christiansburg's Tommy Allie took his seventh checkered flag of the season, the most in any class at the track, in the 25-lap Pure Stock race.
The evening's closest race was the 25-lap Mini Stock, with Ray Sowers (Floyd) edging Marty Moore in a photo finish for his second victory of '96. Jackie Miller won a special running of the Mini Cup division, with Joe Covington placing second and Larry Johnson finishing third.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines KEYWORDS: AUTO RACINGby CNB