THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 27, 1996 TAG: 9603270547
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
Bobby Hillin may well be the first driver in NASCAR history to shovel snow off a track so he could practice.
Hillin wanted to test at Bristol International Raceway last Thursday, the final possible day before the track shut down a week in advance of Friday's qualifying for the Food City 500.
His truck driver drove through a snowstorm Wednesday night to reach the Tennessee track, and when Hillin arrived Thursday morning, he found the third and fourth turn banking covered with snow and ice.
Track officials said the track was closed. Hillin and team manager Mark Harrah asked if they could try to clear and dry it themselves. They were told, ``If you can do it, go ahead.''
``I was holding on to the wall with one hand and holding a shovel in the other hand, scraping snow and ice off the banking,'' Hillin told Ford's Wayne Estes. Harrah helped him.
Then they got in Harrah's Ford Mustang Cobra and drove 220 laps to dry it.
``We were pretty determined,'' Hillin said. ``The two of us had done a lot before any of the team got to the track. And then we just got out on the track with Mark's car and one Ford van and dried it off.
The forecast had called for clearing weather that afternoon, but Hillin drove through snow flurries on some of his practice laps. He had about 30 minutes of practice.
``We accomplished some things, but not a lot really, but I'm glad we got the few laps we got because we really needed to look at some things on the Bristol car,'' Hillin said.
JUST DON'T CRAWL: The NASCAR exhibition in Japan this November may well end up as a Dale Earnhardt benefit.
He's done an exhibition there, and now he and his crew are returning after the Bristol race for a Goodyear tire test. No other NASCAR driver has yet run at the track.
``I'm really not worried about the food or anything like that,'' crew chief David Smith told Chevy's Ray Cooper. ``If it doesn't crawl away from me, I can eat it.''
GOING HOME AGAIN: Veteran crew chief Jeff Hammond, late of the Tri-Star Motorsports No. 19 Ford Thunderbird, has rejoined Darrell Waltrip as team manager.
Waltrip won two of his Winston Cup championships (1982, 1985) and 43 races with Hammond as his crew chief in the 1980s. Pete Petersen will remain as Waltrip's crew chief.
``Jeff will help prepare the cars and work on race strategy on race day,'' Waltrip said in a statement. ``On race day, he will be the one talking to me over the radio and making calls from the pits.''
Hammond said he always wanted to return. ``I was very happy at Tri-Star Motorsports, and this is the only reason I would have left,'' he said.
MORE AERODYNAMICS: The Ford-Chevy aerodynamics soap opera continues at its usual brisk pace.
National Speed Sport News correspondent Stan Creekmore reported that Ford owner Jack Roush, one of the most outspoken NASCAR critics on the aero issue, is building a Chevrolet Monte Carlo and Ford/Chevy hybrids to do his own testing.
``I'm getting ready to build a Chevrolet Monte Carlo for testing,'' Roush told Creekmore. ``I'm going to show (NASCAR) the results. I'll show them here's how fast my Ford/Chevrolet is against my Ford/Ford, and then my Chevrolet/Chevrolet against my Ford/Ford.''
The Ford camp is saying that the fuel mileage problem that many cars had at Darlington was almost exclusively limited to Fords, and that's because fuel mileage is related to aerodynamics.
``All the Fords running out of gas was a byproduct of aerodynamics,'' said Ford spokesman Wayne Estes.
NASCAR has been trying to equalize the aerodynamics on the two makes - specifically the rear downforce - by allowing the Fords to enlarge their rear spoilers by fractions of inches.
The larger spoiler improved Ford's rear downforce, which was the aim, but also increased drag.
``Greater drag is going to cause you to use more fuel because horsepower costs more fuel and you've got to feed those ponies to make up for the extra drag,'' Estes said.
``The top four Chevys drove to victory lane,'' he said. ``But they had to push Rusty's Ford there.'' by CNB