THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 11, 1996 TAG: 9603110131
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON, GA. LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
Dale Earnhardt returned to Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday with the same black Chevrolet Monte Carlo that won last November's race here, and it produced the same result.
Earnhardt won the Purolator 500 by 4.17 seconds over Terry Labonte, leading 136 of 328 laps to notch his second victory in four races this year. Jeff Gordon was third, giving Chevy a 1-2-3 sweep. Ernie Irvan and Jeremy Mayfield finished fourth and fifth in Fords.
The subplot of Sunday's race was the continuing aerodynamic controversy between Ford and Chevy. It prompted a nasty argument between Chevy driver Labonte, his crew chief, Gary DeHart, and NASCAR official Steve Peterson on pit road after the race.
Witnesses said Labonte threw his water bottle at a NASCAR official, but NASCAR spokesman Kevin Triplett said he could confirm only a verbal confrontation. Labonte was unavailable for comment because he had already left the track when news of the incident reached reporters in the garage area.
Labonte and DeHart were upset because NASCAR chose their car, and not Earnhardt's, to take to the Lockheed wind tunnel in nearby Marietta for comparison aerodynamic tests today and Tuesday with the Ford of Rusty Wallace and the Pontiac of Bobby Hamilton.
Triplett said NASCAR would investigate the postrace confrontation.
One reason Earnhardt's car wasn't chosen, Triplett said, was that it was the same car NASCAR took to the wind tunnel last fall.
``I told (NASCAR) just to pull the numbers up from last year, because it's the same car,'' Earnhardt said.
``We're proud to be able to come back with the same car and do the same thing we did in the fall,'' he said. ``We were not as dominant as we were then, but it was just a little bit different complexion of a race.''
Labonte, who led 100 laps, seemed to be Earnhardt's match most of the afternoon, but the final round of pit stops made the difference.
Labonte was about 1.4 seconds ahead of Earnhardt just before the final stops around lap 295. When they returned to speed on the track, Earnhardt was up by about 3.6 seconds. Labonte's stop was timed at 21.8 seconds; Earnhardt's crew finished its work in 19.7 seconds.
``We had a great pit stop there at the end,'' Earnhardt said. ``I knew when I came down the front straightaway and Terry was just rolling off pit road that we had a great stop.''
Labonte told Chevy's Ray Cooper: ``We came up a little short. We had some lug nuts jam up on that last pit stop and lost some ground. The spoiler flew off of (Hut Stricklin's) car and hit our front end and busted it all up. After we got the front end busted, we weren't nearly as good.''
The damage from the spoiler was the genesis of the pit road dispute. Labonte and DeHart wanted to know why NASCAR decided to take a Chevy with front body damage to the wind tunnel to compare against an undamaged Ford and an undamaged Pontiac. They reportedly were unable to get any answers from Peterson or other NASCAR officials.
``Of the three Chevrolets that finished up front, I don't understand why they picked our car with a danged big hole in the front of it,'' DeHart told a track reporter. ``I'm trying to get some answers from them right now. Nobody on pit road seems to have the answers.''
Triplett described the confrontation this way: ``The crew chief . . . objected in a high-octave manner. What we had was an extremely heated exchange, with the crew chief getting the better end of the verbal confrontation.''
As for Labonte's role, Triplett said, ``You can also put Mr. Labonte down about disagreeing with the choice. It was not as much an altercation with the driver as it was a discussion between the crew chief and one of our officials.''
Triplett said he was unaware of any objects being thrown.
Triplett dismissed the contention that Labonte's car was significantly affected by the front-end damage. He said a NASCAR transponder on Labonte's car showed that ``in the closing laps of the race, it was turning faster laps'' than Earnhardt's car.
``After checking the car, there was not enough damage for us to not to do what we need to do in the wind tunnel,'' he said.
Triplett also said Earnhardt's car had right-side damage from a bump with Dick Trickle's car that ``would have altered the integrity of the test. The damage to the 3 car (of Earnhardt) was worse than the damage to the 5 car (of Labonte). The damage to the 5 car will not alter our test.''
Labonte wasn't buying that, at least from the way he said his car acted after it was damaged.
``That made it push real bad after that,'' he told Cooper. ``We tried to tape (the hole) up, but it came back untaped. We got it partially fixed, but not all the way.''
Meanwhile, in the Ford camp, the story was the same: The Chevys ruled again at Atlanta, and the Fords still need help.
``We told (NASCAR) that before,'' said Irvan, who led six laps in his best run of the 1996 season. ``They're going to confiscate some cars and they'regoing to see why we got our butt kicked. Maybe they'll finally do something.'' ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOS
Dale Earnhardt trailed Terry Labonte by 1.4 seconds before his final
pit stop (above). By the time both drivers returned to speed,
Earnhardt (below) had an untouchable lead. The victory was his
eighth at Atlanta.
by CNB