DATE: Monday, September 1, 1997             TAG: 9709010217

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: DARLINGTON, S.C.                  LENGTH:   56 lines

ALREADY AILING, EARNHARDT EXITS AFTER A MINOR CRASH

After all the turmoil Dale Earnhardt has endured in this terrible 1997 season, he found out Sunday at Darlington Raceway just how much worse things could get.

Earnhardt, apparently ill even before the race started, was hospitalized after what appeared to be a minor crash on the first lap of the Southern 500. He drove slowly around the track for two full laps before pulling in. He doesn't remember any of that.

Earnhardt was taken to McLeod Regional Medical Center in Florence and underwent a battery of tests. Tests were negative, but he was to be held overnight.

``They checked out Dale pretty good,'' business manager Don Hawk told Chevy's Ray Cooper. ``More tests are coming tonight and tomorrow. We're just in a wait-and-see game and there's no answer.

``About two minutes before the race started, a couple of us commented that he didn't look the same. He just wasn't himself. Obviously, when he hit the wall, he wasn't himself. You don't just lag that far behind the field and drive into the wall and hit it twice and then drive around the race track twice and not know what you're doing. That's not Dale Earnhardt.''

In the first turn of the first lap, starting from the lowly 36th starting position, Earnhardt ran into the outside wall. He came off the wall, slowed, and then hit it again in turn two.

He continued around the track, but missed the pit road entrance. His crew called to him on the radio. They asked him if he could hear them.

A weak voice answered, ``Yeah.'' And a moment later, ``I missed the pits.''

Car owner Richard Childress pleaded with him to park the car as Earnhardt made his slow second lap. When he did pull into the pits, he needed assistance to get out of his car. He was carried back to the shade of the awning over the gas pumps as the crew called frantically for an ambulance.

Childress said Earnhardt was seeing double when he talked to him at the infield care center.

``Dale doesn't remember anything,'' Childress said. ``He doesn't even remember starting the race. He wasn't sick before the race. It just all happened at once.''

The crew repaired Earnhardt's car and started looking for a relief driver. They finally found one in Childress's son-in-law, Grand National driver Mike Dillon, who had no experience in the Winston Cup series but got plenty Sunday. Dillon completed 280 laps and moved the car from 43rd place to 30th. Earnhardt also managed to remain sixth in Winston Cup points.

For Childress, things went from bad to worse on lap 134 when his other driver, Mike Skinner, crashed on the frontstretch after being tagged by Robby Gordon in turn four.

NOTE: NASCAR expects to release the 1998 Winston Cup series schedule ``probably about Wednesday,'' president Bill France said Sunday.

One race that apparently won't be on it is a second date in 1998 at Texas Motor Speedway. The schedule includes only one new race - March 1 at the new Las Vegas Motor Speedway, according to sources.

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