THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 31, 1995 TAG: 9508310564
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
This Sunday's Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway marks the 10th anniversary of Bill Elliott's unlikely bagging of the ``Winston Million,'' which has turned out to be the most difficult prize in NASCAR racing.
After adding the 1985 Southern 500 trophy to his earlier victories in the Daytona 500 and Winston 500, Elliott captured a $1 million bonus posted by Winston.
It was the first year the bonus was offered. And no one has won it since.
To win the bonus, a driver has to win three of the four ``major'' races - Daytona 500, Winston 500, Coca-Cola 600 and Southern 500. In the years before the bonus was offered, only Lee Roy Yarbrough (1969) and David Pearson (1976) had accomplished the feat.
Elliott's success was unlikely in that he was incredibly lucky to win the Darlington classic. One by one, the leaders fell by the wayside, clearing the way for him.
``I still picture it right here and right now,'' Elliott said Tuesday during the weekly Winston Cup teleconference. ``I can remember the whole scenario.''
``I can remember where (Harry) Gant was on that day, and he ran Darlington as well as anyone. He was going, and going after it, and he broke.''
Dale Earnhardt had dominated the race when Gant wasn't leading, until the old track bit him with less than 60 laps to go.
``I remember him spinning off turn two,'' Elliott said. ``I just barely missed him. I could have went another way and ended up wrecking. And then Cale (Yarborough) ran well and he was leading me.''
But Yarborough's power steering went out, sending a plume of smoke streaming from the back of his Ford, right into Elliott's windshield. Elliott managed to take the lead, the victory and the $1 million, but remembers that Yarborough ``still gave me a run for the money.''
NASCAR IN GERMANY: Winston Cup director Gary Nelson flew to Germany last month for the German Grand Prix so he could see how his counterparts in the Formula One World Championship series do their work.
``Obviously, the biggest thing I saw was how much money they spend,'' Nelson said of his trip, which was on the last NASCAR off weekend (July 29-30). ``They really do have some big budgets. You don't buy anything. You build everything you've got and you might be lucky enough to buy engines from somebody.''
Even with the disparity in team budgets (tens of millions in Formula One compared to millions in NASCAR), Nelson discovered that Formula One administrators have ``almost the identical problems we have. It's not that much different than what we saw at Bristol the other night.''
ON THIN ICE: There's been a lot of chatter this week about Dale Earnhardt's aggressive driving at Bristol last weekend.
Folks have called NASCAR to complain that he wasn't penalized for crashing winner Terry Labonte at the end of the Goody's 500 slugfest.
Can you nail a guy for providing one of the best finishes of the year? It's show biz, after all. And Earnhardt did get sent to the back of the field for spinning Rusty Wallace. He didn't, however, get penalized for nailing Jimmy Spencer, but undoubtedly no other drivers complained about that.
In fact, if anyone is on thin ice, it's probably Spencer. Mr. Excitement was involved in three yellow-flag incidents at Bristol and started the big nine-car wreck on lap 245. And this performance came only a day after he was called to the NASCAR ``woodshed'' for a lecture about his rough driving in Friday night's Grand National race.
Spencer needed oxygen to recover after Saturday night's race, but Mark Martin had plenty of air with which to voice this complaint:
``It's really, really a shame that we've got some idiots out there on the race track that we can't seem to teach how to do this deal. Guys that we can't seem to get fired from here, guys that can't do it, guys that don't have any brains - people keep hiring them.'' by CNB