ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, June 17, 1996 TAG: 9606180056
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LONG POND, PA.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
After an early stretch of exciting racing on the surface on the surface at Pocono International Raceway, the UAW-GM Teamwork 500 developed into another Jeff Gordon story - this one a tale of redemption.
Gordon led 50 of the final 51 laps and cruised under the checkered flag 3.688 seconds ahead of Ricky Rudd on Sunday to win the NASCAR Winston Cup race. Geoff Bodine was third, followed by Mark Martin and Bobby Hamilton.
``That's payback for last year!'' crew chief Ray Evernham told his driver after Gordon clinched his fifth victory of the year, his second straight and the 14th of his career.
A year ago here, Gordon missed a shift on a restart with seven laps to go, damaged his engine and squandered a chance to win a race he had dominated. Could he do something like that again?
``The thought certainly crossed my mind,'' Gordon said. ``I didn't want to see a caution and have a restart and have to go up through the gears. And with about 20 laps to go, every time we went from third to fourth [gear] on the front straight, I was making sure I got it in there.''
Gordon started on the pole, as he did in winning at Dover on June 2, but he did not lead until the 56th lap. After that, however, he was in front for 91 of the next 144 laps around this 2.5-mile trioval, which was repaved in October.
But before Gordon eased into another dominating run, the fans here saw some of the best racing of the Winston Cup season on the new asphalt. A dozen drivers led the race. More significantly, seven drivers each led 10 laps or more.
The lead changed 10 times during the first 60 laps, and most of the passes came on the track, as Derrike Cope, Rudd, Hut Stricklin, Mark Martin and Gordon took turns in front. Later in the race, Rusty Wallace and Bodine spent some time at the point.
``It was a lot of fun, especially in the early going,'' Rudd said. ``It got a little greasy later on, but all in all the track was great.''
``It's the best raceable track on the Winston Cup circuit right now,'' Bodine said. ``You get super traction. And when you can race like we did, it's a lot of fun.
``You could dice back and forth and really maneuver the race car and the guy in front of you,'' Cope said. ``It was some really exciting racing.''
``In the past here, we have been a little hesitant to run on the outside of a car,'' Gordon said. ``But you could run two-wide and there really wasn't a preferred line on the outside or inside.
``You could kind of get in on the bottom, and then swing high and run out there and keep your momentum and make passes. It was real racy today.''
Of all the challengers top Gordon, ``Rusty was certainly our toughest competition,'' he said. ``I think we were the car to beat, but he was my toughest competitor.''
Wallace led laps 111 through 130, but came in for a routine pit stop and ran into trouble as he was leaving pit road.
``Broke an axle or something,'' he told his crew as his car coasted into the first turn. Actually, he burned up his clutch shifting up through the gears.
``It's a tough deal, because when you go to leave pit road in first gear, you have such a high first gear, you slip the clutch a lot to get out,'' he said.
Then, Bodine put himself in the lead with a two-tire pit stop and led laps 141 through 149 before Gordon moved in for the final pass.
``He was pretty quick with two tires and I couldn't shake him for a while,'' Gordon said. ``We caught him pretty fast, but once you catch a guy, it's pretty hard to pass. When I was behind him, I was just waiting for him to make a mistake.
''I knew I was faster once I got in front of him. He slipped up down in turn 1 [on lap 150] and that's when I got to the inside of him and was able to stay in front of him.''
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP Track personnel douse Bobby Labonte's burning car andby CNBremove the driver from the wreckage after a crash Sunday during the
UAW-GM Teamwork 500 at Pocono International Raceway. Color.