ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608050147
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-12 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BRICKYARD 400 NOTES
DATELINE: INDIANAPOLIS
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
Kyle Petty's violent crash in Saturday's Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway looked a lot worse than the one at Talladega in 1991 that broke his leg, but he managed to stagger away from this one relatively unhurt.
Petty slammed hard into the fourth turn wall on lap 38 when his right front tire went flat.
Earlier, on lap 5, the same thing happened to pole winner Jeff Gordon, but his crash was nowhere near as bad as Petty's, who was battered by a combination of blows. The crash came while he was in second place and happened only seven laps after he led the race.
After Petty hit the outside wall, he shot back across the track and collided with Sterling Marlin. That caromed him back into the outside wall. And then he came back across the track again and hit the inside wall almost head-on.
But after four separate hard collisions in a single wreck, Petty managed to crawl out of his demolished Pontiac Grand Prix and sit down against the wall.
He was conscious and able to talk, telling his rescuers that his leg, neck and chest hurt.
Petty was taken to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, where X-rays revealed no broken bones. He was released before the race was over with nothing worse than a bruised left leg and back.
"I didn't have anywhere to go,'' said Marlin, who was knocked out of the race. ``Kyle cut a tire. Nothing he could do. Nothing I could do. I'm very disappointed.''
Gordon crashed in the same turn when his right front went down. Gordon eventually reentered the race, but retired after 40 laps. He finished 37th.
The two early crashes prompted concern about tire punctures. During the driver's meeting before the race, Lake Speed warned that the speedway had used staples to hold the sod down at the edge of the asphalt in the corners.
Throughout the entire race, however, drivers were dipping down into the grass to get better runs through the turns.
``Everybody is running through the grass,'' Marlin said. ``You try to cut the corners as close as you can. It may be throwing the staples on the track and you're running over them, cutting down the tires. I'm not sure that's what happened, but it might have been.''
Said NASCAR spokesman Kevin Triplett: ``We didn't find any staples on the track and Goodyear didn't find any staples in the tires.''
EARNHARDT'S DAY: For injured Dale Earnhardt, Saturday's Brickyard 400 turned out about as well as he could expect.
The caution period that started on lap 6 for Gordon's accident allowed Earnhardt to get out after only a short time in the car.
And relief driver Mike Skinner managed to bring the car home in 15th place, preserving Earnhardt's position high in the Winston Cup championship points race.
Earnhardt, who suffered a fractured sternum, broken collarbone and bruised pelvis in a crash at Talladega last week, said he wasn't having a lot of trouble driving the car.
``The car was real comfortable,'' he said. ``I wasn't in much pain driving along out there. Our plan was to get [Skinner] in there in case something happened so I wouldn't hurt myself any more. It was really hard to get out of there. This is my life right here.''
``I didn't get nervous about driving,'' said Skinner. ``I got nervous about tearing it up. I didn't want to tear up Dale's car. I wanted to gain some respect from the team and from [car owner] Richard [Childress]. I just wanted to get them a solid finish and stay in the lead lap and bring it home with all the fenders on it. And that's what we did.''
POINTS JUMBLE: Not a single driver in the top 10 in Winston Cup points remained in the same spot after Saturday's race.
Terry Labonte, with his third-place finish, took the lead from Gordon, who dropped back to fourth, 104 points behind.
Earnhardt moved from third into second - 61 points behind - on the strength Skinner's effort. Race winner Dale Jarrett moved into third, 63 points back.
Meanwhile, Marlin dropped from fifth to 10th, while Ricky Rudd moved from sixth into fifth, Rusty Wallace advanced from seventh to sixth, Ernie Irvan moved from 10th to seventh, Mark Martin jumped from ninth to eighth and Ken Schrader dropped from eighth to ninth.
ROUGH DAY FOR CHEVY: Labonte, who finished third, was the only Chevy driver to finish in the top 10. And the next best Chevy driver was Skinner.
``When the tires went away, we were dead,'' said Rick Hendrick, owner of three Chevy teams. ``We knew it. [NASCAR] knew it. I don't know what they're going to do now, but I sure hope they do something.''
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Rescue crews carry Kyle Petty from his car after aby CNBcrash Saturday during the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor
Speedway. color. KEYWORDS: AUTO RACING