THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 20, 1995 TAG: 9505200494
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CONCORD, N.C. LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
Delma Cowart was standing in the Winston Cup garage at Charlotte Motor Speedway Friday, telling a friend all the bad things that had happened to him recently - broken crankshaft on his race car, girlfriend got sick, race truck caught on fire. ...
Suddenly, a bolt of lightning came out of the stormy skies above and slammed into the garage building a few feet above Cowart's head. Small chunks of concrete exploded off the building. A stack of tires jumped off the ground.
The lightning bolt coursed down an electric line in the ceiling, passing 19 race cars as it traveled the length of the garage. And at the far end of the garage, above the NASCAR inspection bay, a junction box exploded in sparks.
Cowart, who dove for cover, picked himself up and said, ``Tell the good Lord whatever I did, I'm sorry. I'm going to be first in church on Sunday.''
No one was injured by the strike, which happened during a thunderstorm around 2 p.m., but a number of mechanics, drivers and others - those who had their hands on metal tools or tool boxes when the lightning struck - received a jolting shock.
Waddell Wilson, team manager of Ricky Craven's No. 41 Chevrolet, had his hand on a tape measure that lay across the car. He felt electricity surge through his arm and up his chest. Wilson told a track reporter he was all right, ``but I wouldn't want to go a second round.''
Driver Mike Wallace was leaning against the metal guide of a garage door. ``I got a jump start, that's for sure,'' he said. ``I decided to head to the transporter at that point.''
SCHRADER'S THUMB: Ken Schrader is still in pain after losing the top of his left thumb in a garage accident last weekend.
``My thumb hurts a lot,'' he told Chevy's Ray Cooper. ``I've got some good pain pills, but I can't take them while I'm driving. The thumb was really mutilated. It's really swollen a lot.''
DOUBLE DUTY FOR SAWYER: After the success of his improbable debut in NASCAR's big league, Elton Sawyer has figured out a way to enjoy the best of both worlds.
His schedule now calls for him to finish the entire Grand National schedule as planned, but also compete in all but two of the remaining Cup races.
The only Cup races with irreconcilable scheduling conflicts are the June race at Pocono and the Pepsi 400 at Daytona in July. He said team manager Mike Hill ``agreed that he'll most likely find someone for those races and I can do the rest. It sounds funny, but I have to put the Busch team as the priority and the Winston Cup has to play second fiddle right now.''
Sawyer is already in tonight's all-star race - The Winston Select - because Jimmy Spencer won two races last year in the car. He'll be flying to Nazareth, Pa., for today's Grand National qualifying, flying back to Concord for tonight's race and heading back to Pennsylvania for the Sunday afternoon race.
BEAM WITH ELLIOTT: Mike Beam, who resigned as Junior Johnson's crew chief last week, was working as expected with Bill Elliott.
Beam said he'll be doing research and development, aerodynamic work and car construction for Elliott's Dawsonville, Ga.-based team from his own facility in Hickory, N.C. by CNB