THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 17, 1996 TAG: 9606170140
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LONG POND, PA. LENGTH: 70 lines
After an early stretch of exciting racing on the new surface at Pocono International Raceway, the UAW-GM 500 ultimately developed into another Jeff Gordon runaway, and his revenge for a costly blunder here a year ago.
Gordon led 50 of the final 51 laps and cruised under the checkered flag 3.688 seconds ahead of Ricky Rudd. Geoff Bodine was third, followed by Mark Martin and Bobby Hamilton.
``That's payback for last year!'' crew chief Ray Evernham told his driver after Gordon clinched his fifth victory of the year, his second straight and the 14th of his career.
A year ago, Gordon missed a shift on a restart with seven laps left, damaged his engine and squandered a race he had dominated. Could he do something like that again?
``The thought certainly crossed my mind,'' Gordon said. ``I didn't want to see a caution and have a restart and have to go up through the gears. And with about 20 laps to go, every time we went from third to fourth (gear) on the front straight, I was making sure I got it in there.''
Gordon started on the pole, as he did in winning at Dover two weeks ago, but he did not lead until the 56th lap. After that, however, he was in front for 91 of the next 144 laps around this 2.5-mile triangular track, which was repaved last October.
But before Gordon eased into another dominating run, the fans saw some of the best racing of the year. A dozen drivers led the race. More significantly, seven of them led 10 laps or more.
The lead changed 10 times during the first 60 laps as Derrike Cope, Rudd, Hut Stricklin, Mark Martin and Gordon took turns in front. Later in the race, Rusty Wallace and Bodine spent some time there.
``It was a lot of fun, especially in the early going,'' Rudd said. ``It got a little greasy later on, but all in all, the track was great.''
``It's the best-raceable track on the Winston Cup circuit right now,'' Bodine said. ``You get super traction. And when you can race like we did, it's a lot of fun.
Said Cope: ``You could dice back and forth and really maneuver the race car and the guy in front of you. It was some really exciting racing.''
Added Gordon: ``In the past here, we have been a little hesitant to run on the outside of a car. But you could run two-wide, and there really wasn't a preferred line on the outside or inside.''
Of all his challengers, ``Rusty (Wallace) was certainly our toughest competition,'' Gordon said. ``I think we were the car to beat, but he was my toughest competitor.''
Wallace led laps 111 through 130, but came in for a routine pit stop and ran into trouble as he was leaving pit road.
``Broke an axle or something,'' he told his crew as his car coasted into turn 1. Actually, he burned his clutch shifting up through the gears.
``It's a tough deal because when you go to leave pit road in first gear, you have such a high first gear, you slip the clutch a lot to get out,'' he said.
Bodine put himself in the lead with a two-tire pit stop and led laps 141 through 149 before Gordon moved in for the final pass for the lead on the racetrack.
``He was pretty quick with two tires and I couldn't shake him for awhile,'' Gordon said. ``We caught him pretty fast, but once you catch a guy, it's pretty hard to pass. When I was behind him, I was just waiting for him to make a mistake.
``I knew I was faster once I got in front of him. He slipped up down in turn 1 (on lap 150), and that's when I got to the inside of him and was able to stay in front of him.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Jeff Gordon's victory from the pole pushed his season earnings past
the $1 million mark. by CNB