THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 1, 1994 TAG: 9407010524
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Most drivers begin to heal almost immediately after being injured in a bad crash, but Chuck Bown seems to get worse with each passing week.
He now has a broken left ankle to add to his broken right wrist and concussion suffered in a crash June 12 in the first turn at Pocono International Raceway.
He will sit out Saturday's Pepsi 400 - the second race in a row that he has missed.
When Bown emerged from his battered Ford and wobbled to an ambulance after the Pocono crash, it seemed that he might be only shaken up.
But he was airlifted to a local hospital for an overnight stay, and it was learned he had suffered a concussion. Five days later, he reported to Michigan sporting a cast on his broken right wrist. Doctors didn't discover the fracture until the Tuesday after the race.
And now, in the garage at Daytona on Thursday, he was wearing a special orthopedic shoe on his left foot.
``I was pretty sure the ankle was broken after a week of hobbling around with it swollen and hurting and not getting any better,'' Bown said. ``But I just found out about it this week. The doctors had X-rayed it before, but they didn't see anything.
``When I had it X-rayed again, the doctor looked and said there was a hairline fracture.''
But it is the head injury, and not the ankle, that is forcing Bown to miss races. He bowed out at Michigan when he suffered double vision while practicing.
And although he said he was probably ready to try again here, ``I think (car owner) Bobby (Allison) is a little leery of it. He didn't want me out there if I wasn't really, really sure.''
Allison, of course, knows as much about head injuries as anyone in the series. ARCA champion Tim Steele will drive for Bown again this weekend, as he did at Michigan. Steele was 29th in qualifying Thursday.
Bown said he may race in a Winston West event Sunday in Portland, Ore., that he agreed to do a couple months ago. ``That will be a good test,'' he said.
In the meantime, Bown is letting Todd Bodine borrow the special racing foot cast he bought earlier this week. Bodine chipped his ankle in a crash at Michigan two weekends ago but qualified 17th for the Pepsi 400.
PETTY'S NEW SHOW CAR: If you see a brightly painted No. 43 Richard Petty-owned Pontiac Grand Prix on exhibit in the coming months, it just might be the demon car that driver Wally Dallenbach has abandoned.
The car failed to get him into the field at Atlanta in March, and then, as he was making a modest comeback, failed him again and sent him home early at Michigan two weekends ago.
``We did what we should have done earlier and made it a show car,'' Dallenbach told Pontiac's Brian Hoagland.
Dallenbach's qualifying effort here Thursday - 37th-fastest - was better than at Michigan, but he's still on the edge to make the 40-car field.
``I don't know what went wrong,'' he told Hoagland. ``This is getting old.''
MAXWELL HOUSE OUT: Bill Davis, the Thomasville, N.C.,-based car owner who fields Bobby Labonte's Pontiac Grand Prixs, is looking for a new sponsor for 1995 in the wake of Maxwell House's announcement that it will not return next year as a team sponsor.
Earlier this year, the president and vice president left the company.
``They were the ones who understood NASCAR and knew NASCAR, and now they're gone,'' Davis said. by CNB