THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 19, 1994 TAG: 9409190144
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DENISE MICHAUX, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DOVER, DEL. LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
As country music legend George Jones so eloquently puts it, ``I ain't ready for the junkyard yet.''
Darrell Waltrip continued to prove that he isn't, either, with his third-place finish Sunday in the SplitFire 500 at Dover Downs International Speedway.
Waltrip, 47, hasn't won a race since September 1992, at Darlington. That has many people saying that Waltrip, who has 84 Winston Cup victories and three championships to his credit, has had his day in the sun.
However, his Western Auto team has put together seven top-10 finishes in the last eight races.
``We just keep getting better and better,'' Waltrip said. ``Nothing's really changed. . . . This is just a real team now. Nobody is worried about what hotel we're staying in or where we're going to eat. They only want to know where the car is and what they've got to do to get it ready.''
Waltrip started 35th and steadily climbed to third, but he would have preferred to go green one more time rather than end under caution.
``I'd like to have had me and Rusty (Wallace) and Dale (Earnhardt) coming out of the turn three-wide,'' Waltrip said. ``That would have been great!''
SET IN CONCRETE: Sunday's race was the last race on the asphalt at Dover Downs.
This week, crews will begin to tear up the cracked and worn pavement and replace it with concrete.
``It's for the better,'' Wallace said. ``I know Bristol really worked out good on the concrete. We don't concern ourselves with blown-out tires there. I think the track here is in better shape than it's ever been. The patches they have put worked real well.''
The patches are made of concrete.
The banking at Dover will also be changed slightly, with the transition into the turns being flattened. The banking on ``The Monster Mile'' will remain at 24 degrees.
``I hope it doesn't slow down the speeds to much and make for a longer race,'' Wallace said.
A longer race is something Geoff Bodine would greatly oppose.
``This is a tough race,'' he said. ``It's OK for the drivers, but it is really hard on the equipment. We just need to shorten this race up.''
MIDNIGHT RIDER: If you follow racing at all, you know that Wallace has names for his better cars. And if you are a fan of Wallace's, you certainly have heard of ``Midnight.''
It was ``Midnight'' that Wallace powered to victory on Sunday, and it is scheduled to go again at Rockingham on Oct. 23.
Wallace has won 13 races and finished in the top five 25 times in Midnight's 27 starts.
The car he will take to Martinsville is called ``Midnight Ride,'' the car that won the pole and the race last spring. ``Four of our cars are really clones of `Midnight,' '' Wallace said. ``We'd be stupid not to do that.''
DUE BILL: Just when it seemed Bill Elliott is making up ground in retaining his ``awesome'' status, bad luck knocks him down.
Elliott put together four top-five finishes from the DieHard 500 at Talladega to the Southern 500 at Darlington, where he won for the first time since November 1992.
Elliott came home 15th at Richmond and spun out in turn 4 on lap 3 on Sunday.
Elliott hit the wall hard enough to go behind the wall for much of the first half of the race. He wound up 28th, completing just 404 laps.
``Man, I just spun out; that was all there was to it,'' Elliott said. ``It was awful (out there all day). I tell you what, though, I'd rather wreck at the first and go through what I went through than do like Mark Martin did and wreck with six laps to go.'' by CNB