ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, July 1, 1996 TAG: 9607010137
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RADFORD
SOURCE: CHAD WILLIS STAFF WRITER
For Salem's Clay Highberger, the taste of Saturday night's victory in the New River Valley Speedway's Commonwealth Concrete 100 must have been something like sipping from a bottle of vintage wine.
Highberger led every lap but the first in claiming his first win at the Radford track since 1989, ending a seven-year drought. Highberger's win was just the third of his career.
``I feel like I would have to sit down and add up just how long it has been'' since the last victory, Highberger said. ``This one has been a long time coming. We've been searching for some consistency lately. We're getting closer to what we're looking for, and I think the last few weeks [three top-5 finishes] prove that.''
Highberger grabbed his second pole of '96 with his fastest circuit time of the season at 16.47 seconds (90.93 mph), just ahead of Philip Morris' 16.49, Jeff Agnew (16.50) and Tony McGuire (16.51).
``We qualified good tonight and that helped us out as much as anything,'' Highberger said. ``I was real glad we could get out in front and lead laps. I was able to get the car settled in a good line because of it. I probably ran the car a little harder tonight than I had to ... but that's just me.''
Highberger's hard driving style was brought about in large part because of the performance of runner-up Rodney Cundiff. Cundiff closed Highberger's lead from two seconds to just under a car-length in the race's final 20 laps, but worn tires prevented Cundiff from taking the lead.
``You've got to hand it to Clay tonight because his car was really strong,'' Cundiff said. ``We gave it our best run, but he just held us off down the stretch. It looked like I could outrun him in traffic, but there just wasn't a lot of it at the end.''
Tim McGuire finished third in his first appearance at the speedway in a month. Morris placed fourth and Chad Harris came in fifth. Ronnie Thomas, the all-time win leader at the track with 58 victories, made a successful return to NRVS, placing sixth.
Woodlawn's Eddie Walls claimed his first victory of the season in the 35-lap Limited Sportsman race. Walls grabbed the pole with a qualifying run of 16.77 seconds (89.30 mph) and led flag-to-flag for the victory, beating division points leader Tam Topham by five car-lengths. Jay McCray finished third.
Walls' run to the checkered flag was made easier when last week's winner, Bruce Brown, and Bo Howell, the pilot of the Jack Ingram-owned entry, bowed out of the race with engine problems on laps 12 and 25, respectively.
In the 25-lap Pure Stock event, Christiansburg's Tommy Allie continued his impressive run at the front of the division with his seventh consecutive victory and ninth overall on the season. Randy Taylor finished second and Dean Sutphin placed third.
To keep one or two cars from dominating the field, the top six qualifiers are re-positioned by a drawing out of a hat.
Allie qualified second but drew the sixth position to start the race, while pole-sitter John McMahan drew second. McMahan built a four-second lead by lap 13 before engine problems forced him to retire. From there, Allie pulled away from the field before narrowly averting disaster in the race's final turn. Allie and Donnie Sheppard came together, causing Sheppard to spin out of control just inches in front of the leader.
Kevin Snyder of Christiansburg led the final 10 circuits of the 25-lap Mini Stock race to take his fourth victory of the season. Snyder's win snapped a two-race win streak by Roy Sowers, who led the first 15 laps of the race before yielding to Snyder. Pole-sitter Robert Cox came in second while Sowers claimed third.
In the 25-lap Mini Cup race, Kenny Campbell won the modified division while Willie Wines Jr. took home top honors in the stock division. The race featured the evening's closest finish and its scariest moment - a turn 2 crash that hospitalized Rusty Dieffenbach for multiple bruises and sent Stephan Compton's No.3 car airborne. Track officials said Dieffenbach's hospitalization was precautionary.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines KEYWORDS: AUTO RACINGby CNB