DATE: Monday, April 28, 1997                TAG: 9704280149

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: TALLADEGA, ALA.                   LENGTH:   38 lines

TALLADEGA TO TRY AGAIN TODAY THE FORECAST ISN'T VERY OPTIMISTIC: A 60 PERCENT CHANCE OF EVEN MORE RAIN.

A day of steady showers washed out the Winston 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday. The race was rescheduled for noon (EDT) today.

``We waited as long as we could to give us a window to get the whole race in,'' NASCAR spokesman Kevin Triplett said when the announcement was made at 3 p.m. (EDT). ``But as cool as it is, it would take two hours to get the track dried and we just don't see that happening.''

The NASCAR radar screen confirmed that. It showed rain and thundershowers stretching all the way to Texas. And the forecast for today doesn't look much better. The National Weather Service called for a 60 percent chance of showers and thundershowers, with the high in the low 70s.

``We haven't thought about an alternative for tomorrow other than we can't go past tomorrow,'' Triplett said Sunday. ``These truck drivers have to get back to North Carolina and then on to Sears Point.''

The Winston Cup transporters need to be in northern California by Thursday night, and it takes about 48 hours of driving to make it there.

If today's effort is also rained out, the race will have to be rescheduled to a later date. Triplett said no date has been selected, but speculation focused on Saturday, May 10, on Mother's Day weekend, or the weekend of June 28-29. These are the next two off weekends in the Winston Cup series.

But Triplett sounded a positive note on today's prospects.

``There appears to be a break in the afternoon that will allow us to race,'' he said. ``We have a lot of people here to see a race. And with the schedule as it is, we'd like to race before we leave town.''

This is the first race to be postponed since the Atlanta race in March 1993, which was pushed back six days by a blizzard. The last rainouts in the Winston Cup series were in the fall of 1992, when back-to-back races at Martinsville and North Wilkesboro were rained out on Sunday and run on Monday.

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