THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 5, 1995 TAG: 9506050118
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER NASCAR NOTES
DATELINE: DOVER, DEL. LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
The solution to the Goodyear tire crisis Sunday at Dover Downs International Speedway was Gary's Tire Store.
Winston Cup director Gary Nelson roped off an area on Dover Downs' horse track and created a tire-distribution center, where he doled out tires in a manner befitting NASCAR's benevolent dictatorship.
The ``store'' became necessary when Goodyear scrapped the tires it had brought to Dover because they were blistering on the new concrete surface.
After Goodyear shipped in 400 replacement right-side tires and 700 left-side tires Sunday morning, and the teams chipped in another 100 right-side tires found around their shops, it was obvious there still were not enough tires to meet the demand. So, to make tire allocations fair to all, Gary's Tire Store opened for business.
``We got some good breaks today,'' Nelson said. ``Unfortunately, part of it was at the expense of that first big wreck.''
Actually, at the beginning of the race, the tire store was empty, because Nelson had doled out six sets of tires to each team. But when 18 cars crashed on the second lap, Nelson collected the unused tires from the three teams that dropped out of the race. By lap 25, Gary's store had 15 sets of new tires.
Other sets began trickling in when NASCAR inspectors collected one set each from the teams whose cars were crippled by the wreck but still running.
``Our first tire sale - I should say `allocation' - went to the first 25 cars in the race,'' he said. That happened between lap 100 and 200, and gave all the competitive cars a second set.
In the end, everybody had enough, although race winner Kyle Petty and second-place Bobby Labonte had no new right-side tires left in their pits when the checkered flag fell.
There was much bartering, haggling and arguing as the leaders tried unsuccessfully to persuade Nelson to make lapped cars give up some of their fresh rubber.
Petty's team, however, made a slick move to get an eighth set with about 100 laps to go.
``The King slipped us a set down there,'' Kyle Petty said, referring to his father, Richard. ``So we had one of the King's sets.''
But not for long. Nelson heard about it, went to Kyle's pit, confiscated the four tires and took them back to his store.
A BOOST FOR DODSON: Petty's victory gave crew chief Barry Dodson a big lift.
Dodson lost his two teenage children last year in a traffic accident.
``This keeps me alive,'' Dodson said. ``I talked to some people this morning and I said, `I just feel like walking away and hiding. Everything's going so bad.' . . .
``I felt like if I couldn't win a race this year for my children, you know, maybe I'd do something else. I knew we could, I felt like we could, and by golly, we did it.''
$2,000 FINE: Richard Broome, manager and crew chief for Hut Stricklin's car, was fined $2,000 Sunday after a piece of unsecured lead came out of the car during practice Friday. But Broome couldn't have been too upset: Stricklin finished fourth for the team's best performance of '95. by CNB