THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 28, 1996 TAG: 9605280161
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CONCORD, N.C. LENGTH: 57 lines
On April Fool's Day, the car Dale Jarrett drove to victory in Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway was undergoing emergency surgery in Simpsonville, S.C.
Jarrett had wrecked the car in qualifying at Bristol on March 29, and it had been shipped to Laughlin Racing Products for a new front chassis piece, or front clip.
The April 1 operation took six hours. It is a routine procedure, and most Winston Cup cars go through it several times during their existence. Still, team manager Larry McReynolds called twice while the car was in the shop.
``He wanted an update about what I felt about the car,'' shop manager Jack Laughlin said. ``I told him it was fine. Larry is the type of person - it's just like this car is one of his children.''
And Jarrett proved Sunday that not only had the car made a complete recovery, but it also was the best it had ever been.
He led 199 of 400 laps, keeping his Ford Thunderbird on the bottom groove in the turns the entire night. And he ran away from Dale Earnhardt for a whopping 12-second win.
This was the first event for the car since the Bristol crash. It took the team about 10 days to refit the car after it received the new front clip. Jarrett tested it at Charlotte in early May and determined it was the car to use in the race.
But as dominant as Jarrett was in the race, it didn't help him all that much as he chases Earnhardt for the lead in the Winston Cup championship.
But Jarrett's dominance in the race wasn't reflected in the Winston Cup points standings. He picked up only 10 points in his bid to chase down Earnhardt for the series championship.
``We ran our tails off here tonight and I guess we gained 10 points, so I guess we're still 105 back,'' Jarrett said in a postrace interview. ``I think I'm correct in saying that Earnhardt has finished in the top five in nine of 11 races, so we're going to have to win to catch him at that rate.''
And while Charlotte is a 1 1/2-mile oval, tempers reached short-track pitch on Sunday. All of the anger was concentrated within a 71-lap stretch from laps 142 to 212, when all six of the race's yellow flags flew.
Dave Marcis, who crashed after a bump by John Andretti, was asked on radio what happened.
``John Andretti, that's what happened,'' he said. ``The little (expletive) is blind.''
And car owner Felix Sabates was so mad after his driver, Kyle Petty, was penalized after triggering a 13-car crash that he said, ``I just gave (NASCAR) my credential and told them I wasn't coming back to another race this year.''
It was Sabates' language, not Petty's, as previously reported, that prompted an additional two-lap penalty after Petty was penalized five laps following the pileup. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
The operation was a success: Dale Jarrett's rebuilt Ford ran away
and hid Sunday night in Charlotte, leading 199 laps of the 400-lap
Coca-Cola 600. by CNB