THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 26, 1995 TAG: 9501260533
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
Even during January practice, when nearly every Winston Cup car in the garage at Daytona International Speedway is painted in dull primer colors of tan or gray, Dale Earnhardt's Chevrolet Monte Carlos looked meaner than everyone else's cars.
Earnhardt's team put a dusting of black spray paint over the tan primer on the bodies of his cars, giving them a speckled, two-tone appearance that produced a camouflage effect.
This championship team, however, isn't spending much time playing mind games, or any other games, with the 23 other General Motors teams that were here Monday through Wednesday for testing.
Earnhardt and his team were off in their own world, intently measuring the performance of two superspeedway cars. Team owner Richard Childress even hired Jimmy Hensley, who is still looking for his own ride, to help test Earnhardt's superspeedway cars.
``If you want good race cars, you try to duplicate them when you build them,'' Earnhardt said. ``But that's really hard to do. We fine-tune `em and fine-tune `em. But I don't care what you do to `em, one car is always going to be a little better than the other. And right now we're trying to figure out which one is going to be the fastest for the (Daytona) 500.''
Earnhardt obviously wasn't concerned about how he compared with other teams in January testing, as he was only 16th-fastest.
By the way, the consensus among the Chevy drivers is that the Monte Carlos are better-driving cars than the Luminas because they have more rear downforce without having an equal increase in drag. This makes them more comfortable to drive on the track and allows them to handle better in the draft, the drivers said.
FINAL DAY: Some new names popped up as the speed leaders in the final day of GM testing, which also was the final day of Winston Cup practice in January.
Michael Waltrip recorded the fastest lap of the month Wednesday afternoon in his Pontiac, reaching 192.802 mph in his Pontiac. Chevy driver Joe Nemechek was second-fastest for the day, and third-fastest for the month, at 192.513. Darrell Waltrip was third-fastest Wednesday at 191.980 in a Chevy, followed by Robert Pressley and Terry Labonte, both in Chevys, at 191.816.
Dale Jarrett had the fastest Ford, reaching 192.555 on Jan. 18.
NEW SPONSOR: Joe Nemechek is doing it on his own this year despite an impressive rookie season last year in Larry Hedrick's No. 41 Chevy. Wednesday, he announced that Burger King will be his primary sponsor in 1995.
Nemechek, who will be driving car No. 87, said his family-owned team ``is new, but it's not new. Ever since I started racing, we've done racing as a family.
``In 1992 we won the Busch Grand National championship. So I feel I'm going to have better control over my own destiny in the long run by starting now on my own.''
If the Burger King press release about the new sponsorship is any measure, the partnership is experiencing growing pains. The release misspelled Nemechek's name (``Nemecheck'') throughout. by CNB