THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408280230
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BRISTOL, TENN. LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
When Rusty Wallace crossed under the checkered flag at the Goody's 500 with Mark Martin on his bumper instead of the other way around Saturday night, crew chief Buddy Parrott summed it up best.
``Hey, baby, that's payback for last year. You did a hell of a job,'' Parrott told Wallace on the radio moments after the victory.
Wallace didn't dominate this race as he did last year, but he won, and that's all that mattered to him.
``I just loved it,'' he said. ``I thought it was a great race. I thought it was a really exciting race.''
Martin, who made the race-winning pass on Wallace at Bristol International Raceway last year with only 13 laps to go, got up to Wallace's bumper in the final laps of this race but went no further.
``It was a scary moment because I could see the whites of Mark's eyes back there with five laps to go,'' Wallace said.
Said Martin: ``We just got beat tonight.''
It was Wallace's sixth victory of 1994 and the 37th of his career. It was also his fifth win at the 0.533-mile, high-banked Bristol oval, but his first in the night race.
Dale Earnhardt was third, followed by Darrell Waltrip and Bill Elliott. Also finishing on the lead lap were Sterling Marlin, Michael Waltrip and Todd Bodine.
Pole-winner Harry Gant was ninth, one lap down, after slowing late in the race with an apparent tire problem. Gant led 88 laps early in the race.
Wallace's stiffest competition came not from Martin but from Geoff Bodine, who led 168 of the 500 laps before dropping out on lap 456 when his engine broke.
``It looks like the water pump broke and all the water came out,'' Bodine said. ``The engine overheated and it burned a piston.''
Crew chief Paul Andrews could see it coming.
``I don't think we can make it,'' he said shortly before the engine expired.
Wallace could see it coming, too.
On lap 430, he radioed his crew, including spotter/car owner Roger Penske, and said, ``The 7 car is getting ready to blow up. Watch him.''
Penske replied: ``You scare the hell out of us when you say stuff like that.''
After the race, Wallace said he wasn't worried about tailing Bodine's dying car.
``The smoke that was coming out of it smelled like a burned-piston-type deal,'' he said. ``I felt as though I'd be OK if he did have a problem because it didn't look like he blew a crankshaft out of the bottom or anything like that.''
The race was not quite the wreck-fest predicted by some drivers, but there was still plenty of trouble.
The yellow flag flew 12 times, and although most of the caution periods were for single-car spins or crashes, there were several multi-car incidents, including a five-car crash on the frontstretch on lap 160.
One of the crash victims was Jeff Gordon, who was running third on lap 222 when he was hit in the rear by Bodine on the backstretch and spun into the inside wall.
``The SOB got me loose and then took me out,'' Gordon told his crew.
When Bobby Hamilton hit the wall coming out of the fourth turn on lap 300, he took Bobby Labonte out with him.
``Man, that thing just went straight,'' Hamilton said. ``I guess it just blowed a tire.''
``It's one of them bad nights,'' Labonte said. ``There should be a full moon out there somewhere.''
Dale Jarrett probably would agree, because when he crashed out of the race on lap 389, he had no idea why.
``I have no idea what happened,'' he said after losing control in turn four and hitting the outside wall. ``It just turned around right there. It was like it cut a tire.'' But all four tires were fine.
``It was like I got hit, but there wasn't anybody close,'' Jarrett said.
Although Earnhardt finished third, he didn't have anything for the leaders. ``We just misread the chassis and it was just too tight,'' he said.
But Earnhardt's solid finish meant little change in the Winston Cup championship race. Earnhardt now has a 201-point lead over Mark Martin.
Wallace is third, 203 points behind Earnhardt. Ernie Irvan, sidelined by his wreck at Michigan last weekend, dropped to fourth. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
``I could see the whites of (Mark Martin's) eyes back there,'' Rusty
Wallace said. Martin got no closer, finishing second.
by CNB