ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 10, 1997 TAG: 9703120022
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HAMPTON, GA.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER THE ROANOKE TIMES
Dale Jarrett dominates the Primestar 500 in a race delayed for 52 minutes by a fiery wreck.
Dale Jarrett had to endure an ignition failure, a close call on the track, a 52-minute red-flag delay and a blinding late-afternoon sun, but he still won the Primestar 500 on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
It was the third consecutive NASCAR Winston Cup race Jarrett dominated, but the first he won.
And the first word out of his mouth after he crossed the start-finish line to complete lap 328 was: ``Finally.'' The rest of his sentence was drowned out as his team members chimed in with their congratulations.
Jarrett's teammate, Ernie Irvan, finished second, followed by surprising Morgan Shepherd, Bobby Labonte and Jeff Burton. Mark Martin was sixth, followed by Michael Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, Terry Labonte, Bobby Hamilton and Johnny Benson, the last driver on the lead lap.
The race was red-flagged on lap 285 after the worst crash of the Winston Cup season tore the rear end out of Steve Grissom's Chevrolet and sent the crowd into a numbing quiet until the word came that Grissom was OK.
Grissom's car slammed back first into an angled wall on the inside of the end of the backstretch, and the impact launched him into a terrifying flip and ignited a fireball along the outside wall.
But he crawled out from his upside-down car and was released after a checkup at the infield care center.
It might seem ludicrous that Jarrett would be saying ``finally'' and breathing a sigh of relief after winning an event only four races into a 32-race season. But he has so thoroughly dominated the past three events that any other reaction would have seemed inadequate.
Jarrett led nearly all of the Goodwrench 400 at Rockingham on Feb.23, only to be passed by race-winner Jeff Gordon with 43 laps to go. He also dominated March 2 at Richmond, but lost the drag race on the final restart to winner Rusty Wallace.
There have been 1,121 laps in the past three events, and Jarrett has led 748 of them. That's 67 percent.
The disappointment of losing the previous two races was ``really not that difficult when you run as good as we have this year,'' Jarrett said. ``You just can't get down. You just keep putting yourself in position and you know what's going to happen.''
Jarrett's victory also gave him the lead in the Winston Cup championship by 29 points over second-place Terry Labonte.
``I tried my best to make it boring,'' Jarrett said of the race. But that didn't happen because of the mayhem that happened during the day behind him.
One of the six incidents happened in front of him when Ken Schrader crashed on the frontstretch on lap 236.
``I was definitely right behind that,'' Jarrett said. ``I saw it start to happen and I backed out of the gas then to give myself a chance to miss it. Then I swerved to miss him and just missed a car that was going to the inside of me.
``But when it's your day, you make it through things like that.''
On lap 190, Jarrett was leading when his car suddenly slowed coming down the frontstretch.
``I didn't know what had happened there,'' he said. ``I thought it was the end of a perfect day to that point. The [ignition] coil went out. But luckily we have back-up systems for that.
``I've had that happen before, but never when leading a race with a car that good,'' Jarrett said. ``It took me a second to remember where the switch was. I think when it fired up, it blew apart a header.''
Once again, however, luck was on his side.
The broken part cost him a fractional amount of horsepower and caused flames to occasionally belch from the exhaust pipe, but it actually may have helped his car's performance.
``What it did was allow me to be able to get into the gas hard and be able to run wide-open out of the corner,'' Jarrett said.
The final obstacle between Jarrett and his first checkered flag of the season was the setting sun, which became more brutal than usual on the final laps because of the red-flag delay. The final lap was run at 5:45 p.m.
``For a split-second there, you couldn't see anything,'' Jarrett said. ``You just kind of had to drive the car by feel.''
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS. 1. Steve Grissom's car leaves a trailby CNBof fire on the backstretch during the Primestar 500 on Sunday.
Grissom was not seriously injured. color. 2. Dale Jarrett hoists the
winner's trophy after driving to victory Sunday in the Primestar 500
at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Ga. KEYWORDS: AUTO RACING