Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 29, 1990 TAG: 9004290109
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY KING SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
"Don't worry," Beaty said Saturday at Martinsville Speedway, "I think all the boys will be good boys tomorrow."
Beaty didn't wink, but he should have.
The Winston Cup Tour director knows there is no such thing as a class of good boys on a short track, especially at Martinsville's rowdy playpen.
"Oh, they all don't listen," the tour's top watchdog said. "Some of them have got little toggle switches they turn off when they put on the helmets.
"Sure, at Martinsville there's going to be rubbing. We realize that. But when it comes to other stuff, well, we've still got the penalty box. It hasn't been used in awhile, but they [the drivers] have been told it's there. And if it needs to be used, we'll use it."
Like a kindergarten teacher on the first day of school, Beaty will warn his boys ahead of time. The penalty box is his paddle.
"At Bristol [Tenn.], I counted 40 incidents of contact," Beaty said. "After my little talk to 'em at North Wilkesboro [N.C.], it was much better. I counted only 16 incidents where people rubbed fenders together.
"Therefore, I look for a pretty clean race here."
That would be a first. Martinsville's tight .526-mile bullring always has ranked among the top NASCAR sheet-metal-grinder speedways.
Throw in the use of radial tires here for the first time and a slick track made even slicker by unseasonably warm weather and Martinsville becomes even more vulnerable to mischief.
"It will be a test of survival," said Sterling Marlin, who was punted around at Bristol and Wilkesboro. "I couldn't survive at either place.
"I would say that Martinsville is the hardest to survive of all the short tracks. At Martinsville, it's everything - wrecks, motors, brakes."
Plus a whole lot of pushing and shoving.
"It's going to be a lot of beating and banging," said Ernie Irvan, who will start in third place. "When you've got 20 race cars running within a tenth [of a second] or two, naturally you're going to run into each other some.
"So far, it has been rough on the short tracks. I got the crap knocked out of me about every lap at Wilkesboro.
"My guys don't like fixing cars. So, here, I'm just hoping to be a lot quicker so the others will have to catch me to bump me."
Darrell Waltrip, whose Chevrolet Lumina will start fifth in a bid for a fourth straight win here, said he is looking for a "typical" Martinsville race. That, of course, translates into a game of push and shove, a mentality Waltrip doesn't quite understand.
"I look at racing as an art," Waltrip said. "When I'm in a race car, it's an art when it's done properly. But the thing is, we've got a limited amount of artists out there right now.
"I always like to work the driver - try him high and try him low. You try to work your way around him. Nowadays, you try him high one lap, try him low one lap and then the next lap you spin him out. That ain't the way it's supposed to be."
Besides the contact, Waltrip said the heat and tires are his biggest concern.
"If the heat holds up, it's going to make it hard on everybody," Waltrip said. "It's hard on the car but much harder on the driver.
"Plus, we don't know what the cars are going to do here with 500 laps on the radials. They say the radials like hot weather, so we'll find out."
Geoff Bodine liked the radials in qualifying. After winning his first pole, he is confident that he can win his first race for car owner Junior Johnson.
"I think this is our weekend," Bodine said. "We're going to win."
Bodine put himself on a limb hanging over a lot of guys carrying saws. The driver next to him on the first row, Dale Earnhardt, has one of those automatic jobs.
"I think we've got a good shot," said Earnhardt, who hopes to celebrate his 38th birthday with his third victory of the season.
"My style suits this race track. People say I can't finesse a car, radials or whatever, but we've beat 'em time and time again at places where you have to finesse a car.
"It's a tough race track to run 500 laps and still have a car left under you. We've done it here before, and I hope we can go out and do it again."
Besides the aforementioned names, other strong contenders should be Mark Martin (starting fourth), North Wilkesboro winner Brett Bodine (eighth), Virginian Ricky Rudd (11th), Morgan Shepherd (12th), Kyle Petty (15th) and Rusty Wallace (17th).
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB