ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 21, 1997 TAG: 9704220018
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
The largest crowd in Southwest Virginia sports history witnessed a huge performance Sunday.
The Goody's Headache Powder 500 began with a surprise. Kenny Wallace and Joe Nemechek starting up front was the biggest stunner at Martinsville Speedway since Clay Earles paved his oval in 1955.
Before 71,000 sun-baked spectators, the finish was anything but shocking - or it should have been. Let's put it this way: Jeff Gordon is Tiger Woods in a fire suit.
Recalling the distant afternoons when Richard Petty turned NASCAR races here into a 263-mile Sunday drive, Gordon cruised to the most dominating victory in the 40-plus-year history of Martinsville's spring race.
In leading 432 of 500 laps, the hurryin' Hoosier broke Cale Yarborough's 1974 record of 427, set in what then was the Virginia 500. The track record for 500 laps in NASCAR's big league is 480 led by Petty in the Old Dominion 500 in September 1970.
Gordon's DuPont Racing Monte Carlo ran like cheap panty hose in his second consecutive Martinsville victory, and second consecutive short-track triumph this season.
He won a week earlier at Bristol by tapping Rusty Wallace on a shoulder. This time, when he wasn't keeping everyone in his rear-view mirror, Gordon was passing them soldier-like - left, right, left, right.
Gordon even survived a 360-degree spin. The rest of the Winston Cup drivers certainly shouldn't be turning cartwheels.
In eight races this year, he has four victories. Perhaps only Atlanta Braves leadoff hitter Kenny Lofton has had a better season to date.
If Gordon is the sport's future, the future is now. He won't reach age 25 until Aug.4, the day after the Brickyard 400. He won the first of those, in his home state, in 1995.
In 41/4 Winston Cup seasons, Gordon has 23 victories. That's in 132 races - and the man who five years ago was a teen-ager running at New River Valley Speedway didn't win until his 42nd race.
Only 20 drivers in the sport's history have more victories. Only four active drivers - Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace and Bill Elliott - have reached Victory Lane more often. Gordon already has four more victories than the ever-steady Terry Labonte - in 418 fewer starts.
Dick Thompson, the venerable Martinsville public relations chief, said he has seen only three other drivers handle Earles' 0.526-mile oval and its lap-turners as convincingly as Gordon did Sunday.
Those were Petty (who won 15 times here), Waltrip (11) and the late Ray Hendrick, a 20-time Martinsville winner in Modifieds and Grand National events. And only the 11 caution flags slowed Gordon.
``It's something we've wanted to do since '93, dominate on a short track,'' Gordon said. ``I never dreamed we could do this. This is the last place on earth I'd have thought this would happen.''
Gordon insists the driver who wins on the circuit's three short tracks - Richmond, Bristol and Martinsville; North Wilkesboro is history - will win the points title. He seems bent on proving it.
He's won six of the past 11 short-track races. He has 12 consecutive top-five finishes on short tracks.
``It takes a lot of patience to win here, and that's the hardest thing I had to learn,'' Gordon said.
Sure, Gordon has a great car, and his ride is from the powerful Hendrick Motorsports team. There's also DuPont crew chief Ray Evernham, whom Kenny Wallace labeled ``a genius'' after Sunday's race.
Gordon, however, didn't just have to drive the past two weeks on Winston Cup's two tracks that bring frustrating variety to some on the curcuit. He had to handle his nerves as well as a race car at two sites that are tough on more than brakes.
Yes, it's early, but Gordon is going places no one in his sport ever has gone so quickly - and we're not talking miles per hour. He's already won on 14 tracks. Winston Cup runs on 19 this year.
He's won 14 of the past 37 Winston Cup races. It was a different era - more annual races, less competition at the top - but it took Petty about 200 races to get to 23 victories.
Earnhardt, who hasn't won in more than 13 months, was into his ninth full year of Winston Cup racing before he reached 23 victories. And he's ``The Terminator.''
Perhaps Gordon will be ``The Dominator'' - and for more than one day.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines KEYWORDS: AUTO RACINGby CNB