THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 13, 1994 TAG: 9406130216
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940613 LENGTH: LONG POND, PA.
Wallace was running away with the UAW-GM Teamwork 500 until a yellow flag with six laps to go threw the field into disarray. It led to the most confusing final lap in recent years in the Winston Cup series. And it took NASCAR more than two hours to come up with an official order of finish.
{REST} But one thing that wasn't in doubt was that Wallace won the race.
Going into the first turn of that final lap, Wallace passed Dale Earnhardt, who had gambled his way into the lead, and picked his way through a traffic jam to win by two car lengths.
``It was a real mess out there for no particular reason,'' Wallace said.
Ken Schrader finished third, followed by Morgan Shepherd and Mark Martin. NASCAR awarded Jeff Gordon sixth place. He was followed by Ernie Irvan, Brett Bodine, Rick Mast, Bill Elliott and Michael Waltrip, all on the lead lap.
Wallace led 141 of the 200 laps on this 2.5-mile trioval for his second victory in a row and his fourth of 1994.
``I won 10 last year and I'm just starting back off from where we were last year,'' Wallace said. ``But it makes it special because when we switched from Pontiac to Ford (during the off-season), we thought it would be a real tough deal to switch over.''
For car owner Roger Penske, it was back-to-back weekends of double victories. Last weekend, while Wallace won at Dover, Penske's Indy cars finished 1-2-3 at Milwaukee. And while Wallace won at Pocono, Penske drivers Paul Tracy and Emerson Fittipaldi finished 1-2 in Detroit.
The start at Pocono was delayed about two hours because of fog and a wet track, and the first 15 laps were run under yellow. When the green flew, Wallace took the lead from his position on the pole.
It soon evolved into a rerun of Dover - a duel between Wallace and Irvan - although Wallace was in front most of the time.
Around lap 166, Irvan suddenly radioed to crew chief Larry McReynolds: ``I think I dropped a cylinder, Larry.'' Irvan's challenge was over and Wallace stretched his margin to almost 20 seconds.
It looked as if Wallace was destined to finish that far ahead until Martin blew a tire going into turn one and the entire tread ended up on the track just outside the groove. On lap 195, the yellow flag flew.
At first, NASCAR planned to restart the race with three laps to go. But then confusion took over.
``I don't know, it was just a weird scenario,'' Wallace said. ``It was sort of strange.''
As NASCAR tried to sort out the field, Jeff Gordon spun into the mud inside turn one while warming his tires.
``I don't know what happened,'' Gordon told his crew. ``I just spun out. I thought I was stuck. I didn't think I'd get out of that.''
But he did, and crew chief Ray Evernham ordered him to go back to his original position, in third. NASCAR, meanwhile, told his team to get in line in behind Mark Martin in sixth. But Gordon didn't do it.
NASCAR race director David Hoots was also busy trying to sort out where everyone was supposed to start behind the leaders.
Three laps to go became two laps to go. And then two laps to go became one lap to go.
Wallace was now second, trailing Earnhardt. During their pit stops on lap 196, Wallace took four tires while Earnhardt took on two. So Earnhardt was first out of the pits.
Although his car was stronger than Earnhardt's, Wallace was now worried that he might not have enough time to pass Earnhardt, or that the race would end under yellow.
``Yeah, I didn't think that for a minute,'' Wallace said. ``I thought, `I can't believe this is going on.' ''
On pit road, Wallace's crew chief, Buddy Parrott, was raging.
``Have you ever been around Buddy when he gets hot?'' Wallace said. ``It's just Japanese talk. To me he was just saying, `Drive, drive, drive, drive, drive.''
With one lap to go, the green and white flags flew together for Earnhardt and Wallace, while five drivers who were on the tail end of the lead lap - Mast, Elliott, Waltrip, Kyle Petty and Hut Stricklin - started in front of them.
``When Dale took off, his car didn't go nowhere,'' Wallace said. ``And I just passed him.''
``We took a shot at the end, and it didn't quite work out,'' said Earnhardt's car owner, Richard Childress. ``Dale just couldn't get it wound up on the restart. The car bogged down on him, and that's how Rusty got up there and passed us.''
After passing Earnhardt on the inside going into turn one, Wallace had to contend with the cars on the tail end of the lead lap.
``I didn't know if I was going to be able to get through that mess of cars to hold Earnhardt back,'' Wallace said.
But as they barreled toward the finish line, the cars moved to the inside and gave Wallace the track.
Even then, he was confused.
``When I took the checkered flag, I thought it was the white flag because there was so much confusion,'' Wallace said.
He was still at speed going into turn one when he radioed Parrott and asked, ``Buddy, did the flag just fall?''
``You just won,'' Parrott replied. ``Slow down. It's done.''
by CNB