ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 10, 1997 TAG: 9703120026
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: AUTO RACING NOTES
DATELINE: HAMPTON, GA.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER THE ROANOKE TIMES
Some of the worst moments of a stock car race occur in the seconds after a bad crash ends and the rescue vehicles have not yet arrived.
In the seconds after Steve Grissom's horrendous crash during the Primestar 500 on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Greg Sacks pulled up next to Grissom's heap of a Chevrolet, stopped and stared, then slowly pulled away.
Obviously, Sacks realized his help wasn't needed. What had he seen? It was either really good, or really bad.
``I think he's OK!'' Sacks radioed back to his crew. ``I was going to stop for him, but it looked like he was trying to lower the window net.''
Fortunately, the news got better.
As Grissom was examined at the infield care center, word filtered out that he was sore and his left ankle hurt, but he was otherwise uninjured.
The track suffered more damage than Grissom. His car punched a hole in the backstretch wall and the fire from his fuel cell burned the outside wall and the asphalt on the track. There was a 52-minute red-flag delay as workers made temporary repairs to the wall.
The accident occurred on lap 284 when Jimmy Spencer lost control coming off turn 2. Mike Skinner hit and climbed over Spencer's car, while someone else hit Grissom and sent him spinning toward the inside wall.
Grissom slammed back into an angled wall near the end of the backstretch. The impact tore the entire rear end out of his car, slung the fuel cell against the outside wall and sent the remains of Grissom's Chevy tumbling back onto the track, where it came to rest upside down.
A huge fireball erupted when Mike Wallace ran over the spilled fuel, but the fire was 20 or 25 feet from Grissom's car and posed no threat to his rescue.
Grissom, resting in his team's motorhome after his release from the care center, told a team member: ``I don't feel too bad. I haven't seen what the car looks like yet. I don't remember what it looked like when I got out of it. Everything held up. I stayed conscious through the whole deal.''
Grissom said the beginning of the crash ``was a kind of a deal where we all had to check back up.'' He said when he was hit from behind, ``and it was just pretty much hold on from that point on. I just skinned my ankle a little bit. Other than that, I feel great.
``The main thing is, thank God I'm all right ... and we'll be back at Darlington ready to go.''
BUMPS AND BRUISES: Grissom may have been injured less severely than two other drivers involved in crashes late in the race.
Ted Musgrave was T-boned by Ricky Craven after spinning in oil and hitting the wall on the backstretch on lap 268. Two other cars also were involved.
``I've never taken a hit like that before, and I've had a few of them,'' Musgrave said. ``I just bruised my knee a little bit on the steering column.''
On lap 255, Joe Nemechek pounded the frontstretch wall after a collision with Gary Bradberry. With a sore knee, Nemechek limped to an ambulance with a sore knee.
GORDON OUT EARLY: Jeff Gordon's car stopped about 20 feet short of Victory Lane. But it was far too early in the race and it was not a trip he wanted to take.
On lap 59, Gordon slowed and drove onto pit road, pulling into the entrance to pit road. Oil from his broken engine spilled onto the white-painted lane.
A crewman took one look under the car and said on the radio: ``No, no, [oil] is coming right out of the bottom. The [oil] pan is bent and everything.''
Gordon didn't have to be told.
``It was like a huge rumbling, a huge explosion under the hood,'' he said. ``I could tell it was coming out of the bottom. It felt like it was a [connecting] rod. It blew up and it blew up big.''
Gordon finished last and dropped from first to fourth in Winston Cup points.
``It's going to cost us,'' he said. ``It takes a thing like this for us to really fight back hard. I felt everybody was making too big of a deal out of [the strong start]. It was sure nice. I'm glad we have those wins, though, because it doesn't hurt us as bad.''
Gordon won the first two races of the season.
MORE TESTS: After the race, NASCAR impounded the winning Ford Thunderbird of Dale Jarrett, the third-place Pontiac Grand Prix of Morgan Shepherd and the ninth place [and highest finishing] Chevrolet Monte Carlo of Terry Labonte for more tests today in the Lockheed wind tunnel at Marietta, Ga.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS. Mike Wallace (right) tries to clearby CNBKen Schrader's car (33) as Schrader slides along the wall by the
start-finish line Sunday during the Primestar 500 at Atlanta Motor
Speedway in Hampton, Ga.