ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, October 7, 1996 TAG: 9610080009
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CONCORD, N.C.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
A sick and sputtering engine in Jeff Gordon's Chevrolet breathed new life into the Winston Cup championship battle Sunday in the UAW-GM 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
While Gordon's car coughed, rattled and puked out water on its way to a 31st-place finish, teammate Terry Labonte motored to his second victory of the year and turned the points title hunt into a neck-and-neck battle down the stretch.
And as fast as you can say ``cracked cylinder head,'' Gordon lost the first two digits off the 111-point lead he brought to Charlotte.
With only three races left in the Winston Cup season, Gordon leads by a single point.
``It's awful hard to gain 110 points, but it's not that hard to lose them,'' Labonte said in Victory Lane.
Labonte led 129 laps, including the final 27 trips around this 1.5-mile speedway, and won by 3.84 seconds over Mark Martin. Dale Jarrett was third, followed by Sterling Marlin, Ricky Craven and Dale Earnhardt.
It was Labonte's first points victory at Charlotte and his 18th career victory.
Coming off turn 4 on the final lap, Labonte told his crew in his usual laid-back manner, ``I believe I can make it from here, guys. All right! Way to go.''
The battle for the title still appears to be limited to Labonte and Gordon, but the defending champion's bad luck Sunday opened the door a bit for Jarrett and Earnhardt. Jarrett is now 92 points behind Gordon, with Earnhardt 271 points behind.
``Now we are going to find out what we're made of,'' Gordon said. ``The pressure is on the leader. You can't get upset at what you can't control.''
Labonte's race was almost trouble free. He had a couple of close calls, but nothing serious. His car ``just ran great today,'' he said. So the big story again was Gordon, even though this weekend it was all bad news.
Gordon's engine began missing around the halfway point of the 334-lap race.
``By the time I noticed, the damn needle, it was pegged,'' Gordon told his team on the radio, referring to the water temperature gauge. ``It was wrapped all the way around that [gauge]. So I'm sure we cracked a head.''
Gordon pitted for the first of several emergency stops on lap 177 and his team pumped cold water into the radiator to replace the water escaping through the cracked head.
``It's terminal,'' said crew chief Ray Evernham at the time. ``We're just going to go out and try to make it. We just need to stay out of trouble and try to keep putting water in it.''
And that's what they did the rest of the race. But around lap 230, Gordon pancaked the outside wall in turn 4 when he was shoved out of the upper groove by the car driven by Billy Standridge.
``Now we're wrecked!'' Gordon shouted into the radio as he scraped along the wall. ``The [No.78] wrecked us.''
``Go ahead and let's pit the [expletive] thing,'' Evernham said.
The repairs didn't help much.
``This thing is pretty bad, guys,'' Gordon reported a few laps later.
``If that's as fast as it will go, bring it in here,'' Evernham said.
After more repairs, and more water, Gordon kept on plugging. It could have been worse. Had he simply blown his engine, Gordon would have finished about 10 positions lower in the lineup, and would have lost the points lead.
Labonte, meanwhile, was more concerned than comforted with Gordon's engine woes. He wasn't concerned about Gordon's engine. He was concerned about his own.
``I think the last time I saw Jeff have engine trouble was at Rockingham [in February] and about 50 laps later I had trouble,'' Labonte said. ``I was worried. But we really paid attention to the water temperature and kept the grille cleaned and we probably didn't get as much tire rubber in the grille as he did.''
Although both Labonte and car owner Rick Hendrick said relations are fine between the two title-contending teams, there is clearly no great bond between them.
After the race was over, one of Labonte's team members told him of Gordon's fate in this detached manner: ``That 24 got hot, and ended up hitting the wall, too.''
Labonte, the 1984 Winston Cup champion, led that title battle by 86 points after this event. This year, obviously, the points race is a toss-up.
``As close as the points are, you have to go into every race like it's the last one,'' he said. ``We'll try to win. It's different if you have a big points lead. Then you're a little more cautious.''
And even though he's won only two races to Gordon's 10, Labonte looks at the rest of the season as the playoffs. Everything up until now was the regular season and all of those wins don't matter anymore.
``The championship is decided by who has the most points,'' Labonte said. ``A lot of times, the team that won the most games doesn't win the Super Bowl or the World Series.''
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Terry Labonte (right) holds up his arm in victoryby CNBafter winning the UAW-GM 500 on Sunday to pull within one point of
Jeff Gordon in the Winston Cup points championship race. color.