THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 25, 1996 TAG: 9603250141
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DARLINGTON, S.C. LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
Sunday's TranSouth 400 was not the wreck-strewn affair of 1995, but there was still plenty of trouble on the Darlington Raceway oval.
The yellow flag flew 11 times for 56 laps, but eight of the caution periods were for single-car incidents. And the biggest wreck involved only three cars.
Pole-sitter Ward Burton was involved in that one, and had the hardest crash of the day. He slammed the inside wall on the frontstretch head-on after Ernie Irvan spun in front of him.
Burton said Irvan ``got tapped by somebody. I tried to avoid him, and there was only one way to go - low. That didn't work either. Out again.''
After winning the pole Friday, Burton saw his weekend unravel. He crashed in Saturday's final practice, and his crew had to work overtime to repair the car, only to see him crash again and finish 38th in the 41-car field.
Other crash victims included John Andretti, Michael Waltrip, Ken Schrader, Ernie Irvan, Robert Pressley (while leading), Wally Dallenbach and Joe Nemechek.
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: The NASCAR censors were busier here this weekend than at any race in recent memory, making sure that the pit notes issued to the press did not offend.
Pit notes contain quotes from drivers gathered by track reporters or representatives of the three manufacturers - Ford, Chevy and Pontiac. Ten to 20 pages of pit notes are issued after a typical race.
But the quotes must be approved by track officials before they are distributed, and the scrutiny is usually tightest at tracks owned by International Speedway Corp., which is controlled by NASCAR president Bill France Jr.
On Saturday, International Speedway Corp. officials censored parts of two quotes by Grand National driver Jeff Purvis, leaving one fractured sentence to read:
``---------------- when I'm out there!''
And after Sunday's race, an attempt was made to censor both Bill Elliott and Rusty Wallace. Quotes from each were blacked out on the Ford pit notes. But you could still read what they weren't supposed to say if you held the page up to the light.
Ford driver Elliott's forbidden sentence was: ``Chevrolets have got us killed.''
Wallace was not allowed to say: ``We've had a bad-ass car all year long.''
LOST FLAG: NASCAR starter Doyle Ford was waving the green flag early in the race when it slipped out of his hand and fell to the walkway below the starter's stand. That prompted the Winston message board, which sits across the track from the flag stand, to display this message: ``Doyle, don't drop the flag.''
OL' MARCIS: Dale Jarrett wasn't the only driver to tangle with Dave Marcis on Sunday. Race winner Jeff Gordon also had a close encounter with the 55-year-old veteran.
Gordon said it comes with the territory.
``I'm always patient when I'm around Dave,'' he said. ``Dave does things his way. When you're a rookie, you learn how to race Dave Marcis. If you don't get rubbed by him every once in a awhile, then you haven't been Winston Cup racing.
EARNHARDT OFF: Dale Earnhardt had an atypically poor performance Sunday, and his usual quick departure from the track was even quicker. He let other members of his team do his talking after his 14th-place finish.
``We've got to check everything over and see what was wrong,'' crew chief David Smith said. ``We were off, the car was off, the setup was off. It was just one of those days.''
Earnhardt was seeking his 10th career victory at Darlington, which would have tied him with David Pearson at the top of the track's all-time list.
THE OVERACHIEVER: Bobby Labonte, with his second-place finish, was the overachiever of the day.
He was getting the best fuel mileage in the field, and that allowed him to take the lead on lap 89 when a yellow flag flew and he was the only driver who hadn't made a regularly scheduled pit stop.
Labonte led for 38 laps, then hung around among the front-runners the rest of the race. Then, at the end, he began to run out of fuel.
``With about eight laps to go, it started running out of fuel in the straightaways,'' he said. ``I had to half-throttle it the rest of the way, but the tires were so gone, it didn't make any difference.
``We kind of had our rally caps on today. We changed four shocks and two springs (before the race), and that brought me a little luck this morning.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
The Ricky Rudd Report
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