THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 23, 1994 TAG: 9407230375
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: TALLADEGA, ALA. LENGTH: Short : 39 lines
When four of the top stock car racers in the Winston Cup series came to the infield media center at Talladega Superspeedway Friday for a press conference, the discussion all but ignored the event at hand - Sunday's DieHard 500.
Instead, Rusty Wallace, Ernie Irvan, Darrell Waltrip and Geoff Bodine focused on the Brickyard 400, the inaugural Winston Cup race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway two weeks from today.
In fact, the main reason they were there was to get Indy questions out of the way so they could concentrate on Sunday's race, the season's final restrictor plate race.
``It's been tough for everybody to concentrate on what's happening right now and worry about what's happening at Indy,'' Irvan said.
``I've been asked questions all week long about what's going to happen'' at Indy, Wallace said. ``Bottom line, it's going to be two races: qualifying and the race. In my opinion, the cream is going to rise 100 laps into the race. The qualifying, I don't know what's going to happen there.''
``I guess one of the intriguing things,'' Waltrip said, ``is how many not-so-regular Winston Cup competitors will be able to make the field and how competitive will they be.''
Bodine completed a final tire test at the 2.5-mile speedway Thursday and was thrilled with the tire Hoosier has produced for the 400.
``It just feels so good,'' he said. ``The temperatures are good. The wear is good. I don't know how anyone could have a better tire.''
But Bodine noted that when everyone gets to Indy, ``all of this testing and practice up to now, just throw all those numbers out the window, because 80 cars will change that race track.'' by CNB