THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 21, 1996 TAG: 9604210211
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE, VA. LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
As Terry Labonte establishes a new consecutive Winston Cup race streak of 514 events in the Goody's 500 at Martinsville today, another long streak came to an end here Saturday in the crucible of second-day qualifying.
Until Saturday, veteran car owner Bud Moore had made every Winston Cup race since 1975 - more than 600 events. And his car had never failed to qualify for a race he entered, although he was disqualified before a 1964 race here after a dispute over brakes.
But Moore and driver Wally Dallenbach packed up and went home after failing to find the speed.
Dallenbach was 42nd fastest among 43 drivers vying for 32 starting spots. And Moore was aced out of one of the four provisional spots by other owners with more points.
The competition in qualifying was so intense, Dallenbach was only about a half-second slower than pole winner Ricky Craven. And that was after Dallenbach slowed down by about two-tenths of a second on Saturday's run.
``We'll just move on,'' Dallenbach said. ``I did the best I could. We couldn't get the car to stick on cold tires. We just lacked a little bit.''
Said Moore: ``If we're going to miss one, I'd rather miss this one. Wally's done a hell of a job. Yesterday he just overdrove the car a little bit in the corner and got a little bit high. We would have made the field yesterday.
``I'm not mad at Wally because he was trying as hard as he could.''
Dallenbach had plenty of company in his misery. The other drivers who went home early were Chesapeake's Elton Sawyer, after an outside-pole run the week before at Nortth Wilkesboro, Randy MacDonald, Steve Grissom, Dick Trickle, Bobby Hillin and Ward Burton.
The provisional starting spots went to Ted Musgrave, Ernie Irvan, Robert Pressley and Hut Stricklin.
UNAPPROVED CLUTCH: Inspectors found a too-small clutch on the No. 30 Pontiac Grand Prix driven by rookie Johnny Benson.
``We took it,'' NASCAR spokesman Kevin Triplett said Saturday. ``And we'll probably have a decision on what we'll do tomorrow.''
NASCAR could have disallowed Benson's Friday speed (he starts 18th), but ``in our determination, it wasn't performance-enhancing enough to make enough difference,'' Triplett said.
YOUNG WINS ALL-PRO: Ron Young of Conyers, Ga., won the Goody's 200 for NASCAR All-Pro stock cars when leader Shane Hall ran out of gas as the green flag flew for a restart with two laps to go.
Rick Crawford was second, followed by Wayne Anderson, Bobby Hamilton and Mike Cope, of Trinity, N.C., who had his third top-five in the series' three 1996 races. by CNB