THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 24, 1996 TAG: 9605240744
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CONCORD, N.C. LENGTH: 60 lines
When NASCAR parked 16 Winston Cup cars in the Charlotte Motor Speedway garage Thursday morning for failing to have strong enough roll cages, it sounded as if a serious scandal had been uncovered.
The cars of Dale Earnhardt and Winston Cup champion Jeff Gordon were involved, as well as those of Daytona 500 champion Sterling Marlin, Bobby Hamilton, Jeff Burton and Ward Burton.
In fact, it was another one of those much-ado-about-little situations that ended up having little impact other than giving each of the 16 teams a couple of extra hours of work on a hot day.
The problem was uncovered in the Busch Grand National garage Wednesday when the vertical door bars on eight Busch cars were found to be too thin.
``We found that those bars were too thin gauge-wise,'' NASCAR spokesman Kevin Triplett said. The bars are supposed to be 0.083-inch thick. NASCAR found that they were 0.065 of an inch thick. The difference was said to be less than the thickness of a credit card.
NASCAR levied no fines, but forced the teams to reinforce the doors with extra vertical bars before allowing the cars on the track.
That prompted some teams to scramble to get parts and welding materials from their shops to the track, but it caused no serious setbacks for teams because the important practices on Thursday were not until the afternoon and evening, and there was plenty of time to get the work done.
NASCAR had checked the bars at Daytona and Talladega, but those were superspeedway cars. These are speedway cars and had not been checked in some time, if ever. Gordon, for instance, had been running his car with the same roll cage for several years.
The Winston Cup cars of Gordon, Robert Pressley and Steve Grissom had to be reinforced on both sides of the car. The Cup cars of Earnhardt, Marlin, Hamilton, the Burton brothers, Bill Elliott (Todd Bodine in relief), Kenny Wallace, Jimmy Spencer, Wally Dallenbach, Lake Speed, Johnny Benson, Bobby Hillin and Randy MacDonald, and the Busch cars of David Bonnett, Jeff Burton, Hermie Sadler, Joe Bessey, Michael Waltrip, Mark Martin, Marty Ward and Patty Moise had to be reinforced on the right side.
JARRETT WINS GN POLE: On a day filled with one-car crashes, Dale Jarrett won the pole for Saturday's Red Dog 300 Grand National race with a speed of 171.996 miles per hour in a Ford Thunderbird.
Mike Dillon, Lester Lesneski and Stanton Barrett crashed during their qualifying runs, while Randy Porter, Kevin Simons and Dale Fischlein crashed in practice. All of the drivers were unhurt.
Behind Jarrett, Dick Trickle won the second starting spot with a speed of 171.619 mph in a Chevy, followed by Grand National points leader David Green in a Chevy at 171.614 mph.
Thirty-two cars qualified or received provisional starting spots Thursday, while the final 10 spots will go to the top-10 finishers in today's Red Dog Challenge Race, which begins at 2 p.m.
SECOND-ROUND QUALIFYING: The second round of qualifying for Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 was a non-event Thursday.
Three drivers - Brett Bodine, Ted Musgrave and Sadler - ran in the session and none were fast enough to win one of the 38 qualifying positions.
Five provisional starting spots went to ex-champion Rusty Wallace, Bodine, Musgrave, Dave Marcis and Elton Sawyer, while Sadler, Randy MacDonald, Ed Berrier, Robby Faggart and Mark Gibson went home. by CNB