THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 26, 1996 TAG: 9602260128
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKINGHAM, N.C. LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
The story of Sunday's Goodwrench 400 was not that Dale Earnhardt won, but that Bobby Hamilton didn't.
Earnhardt played the bully again, Hamilton was the victim, and the result was that Richard Petty's 12-year winless streak as a driver and now a car owner will continue for at least one more week.
Earnhardt took the lead from Hamilton with 49 laps to go by nudging Hamilton's No. 43 Pontiac Grand Prix into the fourth-turn wall, which effectively ended Hamilton's day.
And while Earnhardt wheeled his black Chevrolet into Victory Lane for the 69th time, Hamilton wheeled his smoking, battered car into the garage for the 139th straight time winless in the seventh year of his pursuit of Winston Cup success.
Hamilton, who led 36 of the final 100 laps, was furious. He seemed to have as much steam coming out of his ears as was coming out of the damaged radiator of his car.
``I haven't won seven championships and I haven't won 80-something races, but I'm smart enough to know you don't do stuff like that this early in the season,'' Hamilton said. ``That's an end-of-the-season move.
``He plain hit me. It wasn't close at all.''
Hamilton's chances didn't actually end until lap 366, when he suddenly spun in turn 2 and hit the outside wall. But he and his team were convinced that the damage from the first wall-banger caused the second one.
Earnhardt, back in the tough-guy mode for 1996, was none too sympathetic.
``We just got together and bumped a bit over in turn 4,'' he said in his press box interview. ``We were coming through the corner and there were some bumps down there. We were bumping along there side-by-side and we just bumped together.
``He was lucky. He corrected and saved it. There could have been a serious crash.''
But reporters pressed Earnhardt on the subject. Asked if he got into Hamilton's car, he replied, ``You'll have to watch the replay. We were racing close. I didn't turn the steering wheel into him. We just bumped. When we got together, I tried to get off of it as quick as he got away from me. That ain't what put him out of the race.''
Not so, according to Hamilton and his team.
After Hamilton's encounter with the wall, a yellow flag flew, Hamilton made a pit stop, his crew pulled a fender away from a tire, and he went back out in eighth place.
``We're working for a good finish,'' crew chief Robbie Loomis told his driver just before the green flag flew again. ``Let's be calm and get everything we can.''
``We're going to win this thing!'' Hamilton said.
But his car wasn't the same at full speed. And 20 laps after the Earnhardt incident, Hamilton crashed by himself.
Hamilton blamed it on trying too hard, but his team said a bent trailing arm in the right rear of the chassis probably was the culprit.
In any event, Hamilton and his team were out of it for good. Hamilton completed 383 laps and finished 24th. And the driver and crew were in a sour mood again by the time the race ended.
``Talk to the driver, man,'' Petty said. ``I didn't see it. What can I say? It just wasn't our day. But we had a lot of help in it not being our day, though.''
Loomis said: ``Earnhardt was getting beat by somebody new and he couldn't take it. I'm sure he'll say it was an accident. And I'm sure if it happens the other way around, it'll be an accident, too.''
Earnhardt led 95 laps of a 393-lap race that was dominated early by Terry Labonte. Labonte led 198 laps but left after 235 laps with a broken engine.
Jimmy Spencer led 53 laps but also fell out with engine problems.
Then it was the Earnhardt-Hamilton show.
And when Earnhardt crossed the finish line after another day at the office, he was still thinking about his own disappointment a week earlier at Daytona, where he failed to win the 500 for the 18th straight time.
``It ain't the Daytona 500,'' he told his crew on the radio, ``but it's the Goodwrench 400. And it feels good.'' ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS Color Photo<
``It ain't the Daytona 500,'' Dale Earnhardt told his crew on the
radio, ``but it's the Goodwrench 400. And it feels good.''
Top 10 finishers at the Rock
[list] For copy see microfilm
[Results]
For copy, see microfilm
by CNB