ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 20, 1997 TAG: 9704220008
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER THE ROANOKE TIMES
Ricky Craven will race in pain, but the Wallace brothers and Jeff Gordon are the ones to watch.
Spring finally returned here Saturday afternoon, but it still was nippy enough for Ricky Craven to wear a ``Maine Hockey'' sweat shirt after the final round of Winston Cup practice at Martinsville Speedway.
As he stood at the end of his team's transporter, hands jammed into his jeans pockets, Craven displayed no outward sign of the broken shoulder blade or the two broken ribs he suffered in a crash during practice 18 days ago at Texas Motor Speedway.
But after at least 50 laps in the final practice, he felt it.
``I've got quite a bit of pain in my right shoulder right now, so I don't know how that will be,'' he said. ``I've only been making two-lap runs until this afternoon.''
Craven will not be deterred. He intends to run all 500 laps - all 263 miles - of today's Goody's Headache Powders 500. He has no plans for a relief driver.
``It's like asking your wife what you're going to do if you get pregnant,'' he said. ``You deal with it when it comes. I'm going to try to go all the way. I feel I can do it. I'll see how I feel in the morning. That will tell me a lot.
``It's not going to be painless, but that wasn't a concern when I decided to do this. I knew it would come with some discomfort. But Martinsville is a race track that I've always enjoyed and I've always run well at.
``And it will be a test for me. I think if I can run 500 laps here, I'm ready to come to work full time. The pain - it's like last year. I raced in pain for several months.''
The Goody's 500 will be a test for all 42 drivers in the field, as Bristol was a test a week ago. Many drivers are destined to fail.
Craven thinks being somewhat lame actually may be to his benefit.
``I think if I do drive different, it would be for the good,'' he said. ``If I drive a little bit conservative, that will pay off as far as saving the brakes and saving the car, because you can wear one out here.
``I'm going to run as hard as the car will run and back off a little bit only because that's the smart way to race here anyway.''
Craven certainly wasn't lame in Saturday's final practice. He was eighth fastest, reaching 92.335 mph in his No.25 Budweiser Chevrolet. But he qualified 35th on Friday and will have to pit on the backstretch.
Kenny Wallace will lead the field to the green flag at 1 p.m. after winning the first pole of his Winston Cup career Friday.
``I just didn't realize how big this was,'' he said. ``I've always made fun of qualifying in Winston Cup, because everyone
makes such a huge deal out of it. But I guess I forget sometimes that this is the biggest stock-car sport in the world.
``It's been like a whirlwind. It just blew me away beyond belief. When I won those races in the Grand National series, there were probably six to 10 people around. Here, there are hundreds. And my media guy, Steve Post, brings me not one newspaper this morning, but we were in newspapers all across the United States.''
Still, the favorite today will be his big brother, Rusty, who will be going for a record fifth consecutive Goody's 500 victory.
``It would be exciting if me and Kenny can race each other,'' Rusty said.
But to hear Rusty talk, don't bet against him.
``The car is excellent,'' he said. ``We've been working on some shock-absorber development and we hit on something a little while ago that is the best that I've ever had here, so I'm real excited about it. I made some long runs and we hauled, so I'm real excited, very confident.''
Actually, Jeff Gordon, who won the spring race at Bristol for the third year in a row, has a better recent short-track record than Rusty Wallace.
In the past 18 short-track races, Gordon has won six, with 14 top fives and an average finish of 4.55. Wallace has five victories, 12 top fives and an average finish of 7.72.
At a short track, when you're going for the win, ``just about anything goes,'' Gordon said. ``It's one thing to go in there and just flat-out wreck the guy. It's another thing to get in there and bang and rub and bump and grind toward the checkered'' flag.
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS. Jeff Gordon's recent short-trackby CNBrecord is better than that of Rusty Wallace, considered the best
racer on tracks such as Martinsville. color. KEYWORDS: AUTO RACING