ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 10, 1996 TAG: 9607100054
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: AUTO RACING NOTES
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
The chatter just won't quit about Ernie Irvan's status with Robert Yates Racing and the No.28 Ford Thunderbird, but he's still firm about saying he expects to return to the team in 1997.
``Oh yeah, definitely,'' he said Tuesday during the weekly Winston Cup teleconference. ``I have another year with Robert. Me and him have talked quite a bit and hopefully we'll [be together] even four more years after that.''
This could be a case where poor performance fueled the flames, because both Irvan and Yates said life has been nicer around the team now that Irvan is doing better on the track.
With his fifth-place finish last Saturday at Daytona in the Pepsi 400, Irvan had his third top-five finish in four races and moved from 16th to 14th in points. He's been clawing his way up from 34th early in the season.
``We've kinda turned the corner and the team is starting to jell and do the things we all expected we could do,'' Irvan said. ``A majority of the time, any other race team would be happy with what we've done this year. But we thrive for more excellence than a lot of other race teams.''
``It's sure got the 28 team back smiling again,'' said Yates. ``I keep reminding Ernie that when we were so good, we had a lot more advantages than we do now. I think we're at some disadvantage right now. I keep telling him that some of the times when four or five Chevys were ahead of you, they might not have been there at a point in the past.''
Irvan said he is looking forward to this weekend's race in New Hampshire because he did well there two years ago (before his near-fatal accident in Michigan) and he's taking the same car in which he dominated the first half of the 1995 Phoenix race.
WIND TUNNEL TESTS: NASCAR had a slew of inspectors and officials at the latest wind tunnel tests at the Lockheed wind tunnel in Marietta, Ga.
Not only was Winston Cup Director Gary Nelson there with his lieutenant, technical director Steve Peterson, but key inspector Buster Auton and a number of other inspectors were there too, NASCAR spokesman Kevin Triplett said.
``It was mainly just to check the progress aerodynamically,'' Triplett said. ``We had three more cars, two of which we had not taken yet to the wind tunnel.''
The cars were the Chevrolet Monte Carlo of Jeff Gordon, who finished third Saturday; Irvan's fifth-place Ford Thunderbird and the Pontiac Grand Prix of Johnny Benson, who finished 25th.
It was the first inspection for Gordon and Benson's cars.
``We tried different things, such as seeing what happens at different spoiler heights,'' Triplett said. ``It's an education process. It helps us when we go in and run a car just as it came off the race track, and then experiment with it a little.''
Triplett would not release any results, but Yates said, ``My feeling is that the Fords do need something additional, or some subtraction from the Monte Carlo.''
LENGTH: Medium: 62 linesby CNB