The Virginian-Pilot
                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Monday, October 21, 1996              TAG: 9610210126
SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C5   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: ROCKINGHAM, N.C.                  LENGTH:   46 lines

TIRE PROBLEMS SLOW GORDON'S TITLE RUN

``Refuse To Lose'' is the motto Jeff Gordon and his team adopted on the way to the 1995 Winston Cup championship. But you can live, eat and breathe that motto 24 hours a day and it doesn't mean squat when you get a bad set of tires.

Somehow, the set of tires Gordon's crew installed on his car on lap 102 of the AC-Delco 400 on Sunday didn't match.

Gordon quickly went a lap down. And when the race ended with an unlikely victory for Ricky Rudd, Gordon and his team had lost their slim lead in the 1996 Winston Cup championship battle.

While Gordon was struggling, teammate Terry Labonte was running a cautious but consistent race to finish third behind Rudd and Dale Jarrett.

Labonte now leads by 32 points over Gordon and 76 over Jarrett. Dale Earnhardt, who never found the proper handling for his Chevy, finished ninth and is now out of it unless the other three fail to show up for the final two races. Earnhardt trails by 292 points.

``I'd much rather be ahead than behind,'' Labonte said.

Gordon, commenting on Labonte's 32-point lead, said, ``That's a blink of the eye.''

But 32 points is plenty of cushion for Labonte to win the title as long as he can continue to match, or almost match, Gordon's performances. Not counting bonus points, Gordon could win the season's final two races at Phoenix and Atlanta, and Labonte would still win the title with a pair of fourth-place finishes.

Gordon's problems started after a pit stop on lap 102.

``I'm loose in and pushing like crazy getting off (the corners),'' he told crew chief Ray Evernham on the radio.

``That's totally opposite of what we were,'' Evernham said.

Thus began a long afternoon for Gordon and his team.

On lap 164, Gordon was lapped by Ernie Irvan.

``We're going to get this lap back,'' Evernham said. ``We'll get a break.'' But no matter what Gordon did, he was unable to do so.

At one point, Evernham asked Gordon if there was anything he could do in the driver's seat to ``turn sooner'' in the corners.

``I can slow down,'' Gordon said. ``But I have to go fast to beat them.''

``For being put in that position, I thought we did a pretty good job,'' Gordon said. ``We got behind on that one set (of tires) and it was just really, really tough to make it back.'' by CNB