THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 9, 1997 TAG: 9702090269
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C7 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: NASCAR '97
A Guide to NASCAR '97
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 78 lines
Here's what needs to happen if Dale Earnhardt expects to have any hope of winning the Daytona 500.
He needs to lose today's Busch Clash.
He needs to lose his twin-125 qualifying race on Thursday.
He needs to lose the IROC race on Friday.
The Grand National car he owns needs to lose, too.
Then, just maybe, he'll have a chance to win the 500. Because time and again, Earnhardt has won every Speedweeks race he entered before the 500 only to lose the big one.
This time, he needs to sneak up on it. And if he can just get his car working at the end, and hold that lead for one final lap, the jinx will be conquered.
Something spooky happened after Earnhardt's last-lap loss to fate, a flat tire and Derrike Cope in 1990. The elusive 500 trophy now seems further away than ever. Year after year, Earnhardt's car seems to fade away at the end.
Sterling Marlin, not Earnhardt, has had the all-powerful Chevrolet in recent seasons. And if it's not a Morgan-McClure Chevy, it's a Robert Yates Ford. Yates and Runt Pittman, Marlin's engine builder, are obsessed with winning at Daytona. They seem to have a lock on it. And they've effectively locked Earnhardt out.
On top of that, Earnhardt has a teammate this year - Mike Skinner, the surprise pole-sitter for the 500. And although Earnhardt's opinion of the two-car team may remain uncertain, he seems to have prepared himself for one of the most uncomfortable scenarios.
If the situation in the draft prompted it, would Earnhardt help Skinner win the Daytona 500?
``I think I'd do it,'' Earnhardt said last month. ``Because I'm a team player. Richard Childress has never won the Daytona 500 either. I think I'd rather see my teammate win than some other guy, because I've seen those other teammates (help each other) beat me.''
As always, the Winston Cup championship is as important to Earnhardt as the 500. And with his new crew chief, Larry McReynolds, Earnhardt has a pit boss who is as good as they get.
It seemed unbelievable that McReynolds would leave Yates, with whom he had such terrific rapport, to work with the prickly Earnhardt. But McReynolds was no longer happy working at the Yates shop, where he was trying to manage two teams while remaining Ernie Irvan's crew chief.
``Sometimes, when you get in so deep, the only way to recover is to get out altogether and get into a different situation,'' McReynolds said. He made his decision around Thanksgiving to join Richard Childress Racing.
But reputations alone do not guarantee success. Superstar combinations have failed miserably in the past, and unlikely combinations have worked. The question is, will McReynolds and Earnhardt mesh? Will their personalities click?
``When I come off the racetrack, I've got something on my mind that I want to change on the car,'' Earnhardt says. ``And he's got his thoughts together. And when we both speak, it needs to sound the same. And it does already.''
McReynolds long ago passed the basic test.
``Larry is a hard-working, dedicated person,'' Earnhardt says. ``That's what he is. That's what it takes.''
And as Earnhardt now admits, it will be McReynolds' task to lift him and his team out of their second major letdown of the 1990s. The first came in 1992, as longtime crew chief Kirk Shelmerdine reached the end of his rope. Last year's slump came after perhaps the worst crash of Earnhardt's career, which left him trying to compete with a broken shoulder and sternum.
``We had some bad races after the wreck,'' Earnhardt said. ``I was hurt and it was taking some time to recoup and it was just a terrible time for us. We got beat up bad last year. As a driver and a team. And we beat ourselves up. And we got down on ourselves.
``And our team sort of . . . not fell apart, but our team questioned itself in a lot of ways. We lost a lot of confidence in ourselves.'' ILLUSTRATION: AP PHOTO
[Dale Earnhardt...]