DATE: Friday, July 4, 1997                  TAG: 9707040869

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BRIAN J. FRENCH

                                            LENGTH:   68 lines

LOCAL ROUNDUP

In the wake of a contentious, wreck-filled Late Model Stock race June 21, things went much more smoothly at Langley Speedway last week.

Maybe it was the seven yellow flags in that earlier race or the wreck on lap 47 that turned the track's first two turns into a salvage yard. Maybe it was the postrace skirmishes. Maybe it was that only 11 of the 23 drivers made it to the halfway point.

Perhaps it was a combination of factors. Whatever the case, it drove track promoter Wayne Wyatt to rare words at a drivers meeting the following Monday.

``I got ugly with them,'' Wyatt said. ``I yelled at them, told them to stop whining and to look in the mirror and start placing the blame on themselves.''

The result? A grand total of 12 cautions were called for all five races on last Saturday's program, meaning that 215 laps were completed in about three hours.

And after two preventable multicar wrecks in the first two laps of the main event, the Late Model field rattled off 90 straight laps of green-flag racing - one of the longest such streaks of the season.

``I didn't single out any particular drivers,'' Wyatt said. ``At some time or another, they were all at fault. They had time to think about what I said.''

But while Wyatt's words apparently weighed in with the drivers, the effects from the previous week's race were still felt last Saturday. Seven Late Model drivers, most notably three-time Late Model Stock winner Ashton Lewis Jr., did not compete, leaving the field at a season-low 20 cars. Warren 4th in regional Winston Series points

Phil Warren of Norfolk, Langley Speedway's Late Model Stock points leader, is ranked fourth in the latest NASCAR Winston Racing Series Atlantic Seaboard standings.

Warren, winner of four Late Model Stock contests, including the last two, has a score of .778 in NASCAR's ranking system , one-tenth of a point behind Jerry Williams Jr., points leader at Myrtle Beach Speedway.

Summerville (S.C.) Speedway's Allen Chiggers Jr. is far ahead of the pack in the Atlantic Seaboard region, which encompasses Virginia, Maryland and parts of the Carolinas. Chiggers has won all 10 races he's run this year.

NASCAR has adopted a new ranking system in which the top five drivers at each track are slotted in tiers. The points leaders are slotted in the first tier, while the second-ranked drivers go into the second tier, and so on.

Mike Buffkin is third in the second tier of racers. Danny Edwards Jr. is No. 2 in the third tier, Joe Gaita leads the fourth tier and Greg Edwards ranks third in the fifth tier. Lug nuts

Southampton Speedway is closed for the holiday weekend. The Capron track will resume its Friday night programs July 11 and has scheduled its first Enduro on its asphalt track for July 12. . . . The checkered flag hasn't meant much in Langley's Pure Stock division. Dude Gibbs won the last two races, only to have the wins revoked upon post-race inspection. Second-place Ginger Freeman and third-place Robbie Paul were also disqualified last week, moving Shawn Gervais from the fourth spot to Victory Lane. It also allowed Jimmy Adkins to overtake Paul for the division points lead. . . . Virginia Beach's Gary White won the Super Pro race June 28 at the Virginia Motorsports Park in Dinwiddie. White posted a top speed of 122.14 mph in his 1965 Pontiac Barracuda, with an elapsed time of 10.77 seconds. White is fifth in the points race. Scott White of Suffolk is the Junior Dragster division leader, while Virginia Beach's Bill Haskell is third in the Sportsman division.

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