ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 12, 1997 TAG: 9701140023
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C10 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WINSTON-SALEM, N. C.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DRIVERS AND OWNERS rip rules changes during the Winston Cup preview.
Car owner Rick Hendrick need not worry about being a lone wolf howling in the forest when it comes to complaints about NASCAR Winston Cup rules changes.
``It's getting so technical, it takes all day to go through tech inspection and get a car on the race track. It's just a foolish situation,'' fellow car owner Richard Petty said Saturday during the Winston Cup preview at the Lawrence Joel Memorial Coliseum.
``Now what do they have, 15 templates for the car? Now we're looking for 6-inch squares on the body and saying, `Now what can we do with that 6-inch area to run better?' NASCAR's deal is to make it as competitive as they can, but then they take the ingenuity out of it.
``They're running the price up on us just to go through inspection. And it's not making different people win. The same people win the races. It's been a slow, slow process getting like this and now it's getting a little aggravating.''
Geoff Bodine, a driver and owner of his own team, brought up the subject while sharing the podium with Petty: ``We don't understand why they're doing it. We know they're doing it to be competitive, but they also like control. We know that it's costing us money.''
Similar thoughts were expressed behind the scenes at the preview, the annual one-day R.J. Reynolds exposition for charity. No figures were available, but it appeared the overnight 1-inch snowfall kept the crowd smaller than the 27,000 people who attended in 1996.
The preview includes two-hour autograph-signing sessions with nearly every Winston Cup driver. And before or after their sessions, nearly every driver stopped by a media room for what turned out to be an all-day marathon of mini-conferences.
By 4 p.m., when Michael Waltrip and Bobby Hamilton started trading stories about their favorite ``Beavis and Butthead'' episodes and no one complained, it was obvious burnout was a factor.
When it came to comments about NASCAR rules, the most frequently expressed wish was that Winston Cup officials make one set of rules for the cars per season and stick to those rules throughout the year - for better or worse.
Even seemingly simple changes in spoiler heights cause all sorts of extra work for teams, driver Rusty Wallace said. ``When you change any part of a body, even just the spoiler, most teams take the body and cut it off the car to try to complement the spoiler change,'' he said.
Kevin Triplett, a NASCAR spokesman who was present for most of the criticism, responded: ``It's their job to find a way around that line, but it's our job to draw the line. If we make a decision to do something and we find something that is being made to counteract that, we have to make another decision.
``You look at the situation you're in, and what we look at is 11 different winners in 1996, the highest number of lead changes in the 1990s and 45 different people leading a race. We think the quality of the sport right now is at an all-time high.''
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines KEYWORDS: AUTO RACINGby CNB