THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 17, 1996 TAG: 9602160691
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: A Guide to Nascar
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 130 lines
As the 1996 NASCAR Winston Cup championship hunt gets under way, we pose this question:
Can Dale Earnhardt beat Jeff Gordon?
It is a significant query, and one frequently asked of late, because 1995 was quite a good year for Earnhardt - and Gordon still beat him.
In losing the 1995 title, Earnhardt did not have a significant slump, as he did in 1992, his only other non-championship season in the 1990s. He won five races in 1995, including the Brickyard 400 and his first road-course win, which came at Sears Point. He actually finished the year with a better finishing average than Gordon.
But he lost. And at age 44, the fact Earnhardt lost to a 24-year-old phenom triggered a number of stories suggesting that the torch was being passed; that Earnhardt's long reign at the top of his sport was ending.
``They can kiss my (expletive expletive),'' says Earnhardt, who will sit on the pole for Sunday's Daytona 500. ``I'm telling you, when I get ready to start a race, I guarantee you there ain't another guy out there who is as excited about it as I am. Can't be. `Cause if there is, he's going to have a heart attack.
``I think (car owner) Richard Childress will tell you I'm a better driver .
Actually, Earnhardt admits now what he wouldn't admit last summer: He raced hurt for a couple of months after his hard crash at Michigan in June.
``I cracked a vertebra in my back,'' he says. ``I couldn't lay on my left side for a long time. I couldn't drive good.
``Still, it's not an excuse. I didn't say nothin' about it. I didn't even go to the doctor for four weeks.''
He got well, but he lost the points race, and his performances at Michigan (35th in both races) hurt him more than anything else.
Nothing lights a fire under Earnhardt as does losing. He showed that in the last race of the year, at Atlanta, where he ran away with the show while Gordon struggled to clinch the title.
``I kicked some butt,'' he says. ``And I had a big time at it. And whether you write about it or not or whatever, I stole a little of his thunder.''
Earnhardt clearly relishes the opportunity to steal more thunder from Gordon in 1996.
Meanwhile, Gordon must face the pressure of being the top dog, as well as the reality that his crew chief, Ray Evernham, who gave him the best car in the 1995 field, has other management responsibilities this year within the three-team Hendrick Motorsports family.
At Hendrick, a top priority this year is getting Ken Scrader's Budweiser Chevrolet back in the hunt. Schrader has driven for Hendrick since 1988 but hasn't won since 1991.
``Really, (Evernham's) role has not been taken away from my car,'' Gordon says. ``I've seen the effort put into the 24 car (Gordon's Du Pont Chevrolet). Certainly, reviving the 25 car (driven by Schrader) is there, and there's a lot of focus on the 5 car (driven by Terry Labonte). But there's a lot of focus at the 24 car, too.
``Ray, he really wasn't that hands-on with the 24 car. He organized people to get things done in the right way. He said he wanted to take this challenge. I can see him running all three teams. And as long as I have Ray on the weekends, that's where we click.''
Gordon sees room for improvement at his team.
Gordon and Co. weren't all that spectacular in the stretch run, although he won at Dover in September. But he expects to win his share of races again this year - and he doesn't see any reason why he can't.
In the Ford camp, they're not sure what to expect, but they're talking as if they're not expecting much. About 60 percent of the Winston Cup teams run Fords these days, but Fords only won about 25 percent of 1995's races.
Chevy people insist that their success was due to the hard work they had to do to catch up to Ford, which had the better idea in 1994. Still, there was no denying the imbalance of power.
What happened during the offseason was that the Ford teams asked for aerodynamic concessions, and NASCAR gave them about 20 percent of what they wanted, which was next to nothing, as far as Ford brass are concerned.
``We're basically racing the same car we did last year,'' said Ford motorsports official Lee Morse.
After the final race of the year last year, NASCAR took the best cars of each make - Earnhardt's Chevy and Ernie Irvan's Ford - and put them in the wind tunnel. The tests showed that the Chevy had an aerodynamic edge - that it was a sleeker car and cut through the wind better than the Ford with equal horsepower.
Ford therefore asked NASCAR to allow it to build its cars with a roof height that was 1 1/4 inches lower than it was in 1995.
NASCAR instead gave Ford 1/4-inch.
``We told them, lower your roof by a quarter of an inch and raise your spoiler by an eighth of an inch in the back to get more downforce and lower the front air dam a quarter of an inch,'' said NASCAR Winston Cup Director Gary Nelson. ``Those are the three things Ford gained from Atlanta in November.''
Does Ford have an equal chance as Chevy to win the Daytona 500?
``Pretty close,'' Nelson said. ``It's not an exact science, and what we're trying to do, as best we can, is to make them equal.''
Says Morse: ``The quarter of an inch in terms of variability - it's not even measurable in the wind tunnel. NASCAR is going in the right direction, but they're very much concerned with going too far.
``At the moment, I don't believe our guys can race as well as the Monte Carlo drivers can race. And the Pontiacs are unknown.''
Ah, the Pontiacs. Not even the small five-car Pontiac camp knows how the new Grand Prix will stack up.
The Pontiacs started out slow in testing at Daytona, but they were
posting respectable speeds by the time it was over. The big unanswered question is whether they will race well in traffic.
Forty-one teams and drivers are prepared to launch a full-season campaign, with at least five others, including veteran car owner Bud Moore's team, still searching for a permanent driver and sponsor.
The 31-race schedule is identical to last year's, although the sale of North Wilkesboro Speedway may mean a switch of the September race to New Hampshire or Texas.
But this undoubtedly will be the last year for this schedule. With new tracks and ownership changes, the 1997 schedule is bound to reflect a big shakeup. ILLUSTRATION: File photos
Will Gordon make 2?
Defending Winston Cup champion Jeff Gordon sees room for
improvement over 1995, in which he won seven races.
Is Earnhardt slowing down? No way. ``I'm telling you, when I get
ready to start a race, I guarantee you there ain't another guy out
there who is as excited about it as I am. Can't be. `Cause if there
is, he's going to have a heart attack,'' he says.
by CNB