ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, August 14, 1996 TAG: 9608140036
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: AUTO RACING NOTES
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
Dale Earnhardt plans to return to his usual bucket seat and run the entire GM 400 on Sunday at Michigan International Speedway.
``My concern is my endurance, not the pain or taking the risk of another injury,'' Earnhardt said Tuesday during the weekly Winston Cup teleconference. ``It's a situation where if I do have a lot of pain there, hopefully some of the guys who dropped out earlier in the race can get in the car.''
Earnhardt, who suffered a broken sternum and broken clavicle at Talladega on July 28, ran the entire road race at Watkins Glen on Sunday, finishing sixth after winning the pole.
``I was just as sore in the hips and the back from the seat I was using,'' Earnhardt said, after riding designated relief driver David Green's upright seat instead of his low-back bucket seat. ``Still, I think the seat was a plus with the support for my shoulder. But I'm going to use our seat at Michigan.''
Earnhardt said he ``faltered a little bit physically'' at the end of the Watkins Glen race. There was a dull ache in his broken collarbone throughout the race and ``a burning pain in my chest from the muscles and the tension on it. If you endure that for an hour or two, the third hour you're wearing down.''
Earnhardt said his stubborn resolve to drive his way back to health is not a macho display.
``I'm not trying to be an iron man, or to outdo anybody or to set a precedent or impress anyone,'' he said. ``It's just that I'm trying to do my job. I do my job the best I can.''
That's why he was so upset when he had to get out of his car Aug.3 during the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis.
``That was a tough one,'' he said. ``I got pretty emotional when I got out. I thought about it a lot before the race and it really felt odd to be even thinking of that or considering it. I'm not used to doing that. My desire to drive that race car is so great, it overcomes a lot.''
REALITY SETS IN: Once a race winner steps out of the spotlight of Victory Lane, it doesn't take long for life to return to normal, as Bud at the Glen winner Geoff Bodine learned Sunday.
``We stopped at McDonald's and got a burger before we got on the airplane,'' Bodine said. ``We called that the dinner flight home.''
But there was bad weather en route and ``a couple of team members got sick. That was really cute,'' Bodine said.
There is, however, a victory party for the entire team tonight.
NOT THE ONLY PROBLEM: Bodine's crew chief, Paul Andrews, said the breakup of Bodine's marriage was not the only cause of his winless streak, which lasted almost two years.
``To go through the [1994-95] winter alone without the family he was used to was really hard on him,'' Andrews said. ``But for the 1995 race season, everything changed. When Hoosier dropped out, the tires were different and that was hard to adapt to. And the cars, in 1995 especially, weren't very good cars.
``And that made it more frustrating for him. But we just worked harder and tried to pull together.''
GN NEWS: Driver Elton Sawyer rejoined the Akins-Sutton Motorsports team Tuesday for the rest of the NASCAR Grand National season, starting with the Detroit Gasket 200 on Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.
Sawyer, 36, replaces Dennis Setzer in the Fords fielded by the Mooresville, N.C., operation.
Sawyer previously drove for co-owners Brad Akins and Bob Sutton during the 1994-95 seasons. The driver got a Winston Cup Series ride starting this year with David Blair Motorsports, previously owned by Junior Johnson, but not long after Sawyer qualified second for the First Union 400 at North Wilkesboro Speedway on April 14, Blair suspended operations because of lack of sponsorship.
A Chesapeake native who lives near Greensboro, N.C., Sawyer drove to his only Grand National victory with Akins and Sutton at Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Speedway in 1994.
The Akins-Sutton team has struggled this season, failing to qualify in five of 18 races. Setzer listed two top-10 finishes in '96, the best coming in the most recent race, sixth in the Kroger 200 at Indianapolis Raceway Park on Aug.2.
NASCAR sources indicated Setzer is a top candidate for another Grand National ride in 1997.
In another Grand National development, crew chief Steve Addington joined driver Rodney Combs' team, which is owned by Richard Petty.
Addington is taking over the job full time. The spot previously was filled by ``consultants.''
Addington has been in motorsports 12 years, including eight seasons with driver Jason Keller. He left Keller's operation a few weeks ago.
ADD-ONS: Mike Wallace will be driving the Ford Thunderbird for the Winston Cup race this weekend at Michigan, and Ron Hornaday, Jr. will be in Earnhardt's Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
Knight-Ridder/Tribune contributed information to this story.
LENGTH: Medium: 92 linesby CNB