Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 7, 1990 TAG: 9005070226
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: RANDY KING SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: TALLADEGA, ALA. LENGTH: Long
"I love going one-on-one," Earnhardt said. "Anytime I go one-on-one with another fella, I feel like I've got the advantage."
Earnhardt proved that well-known fact again Sunday, staving off the upset-minded Sacks in the final miles to win the Winston 500 stock-car race at Talladega Superspeedway.
Earnhardt, who normally wins with offense, said he won this one with defense. Experience didn't hurt, either.
"When it came down to me and Greg at the end, I was watching him in my mirror," Earnhardt said.
"It looked like he fell off in the corners and would make a good run on the straightaways. So I started backing off [the throttle] in the corners the last few laps."
Sacks played right into Earnhardt's hand. On the final lap around the 2.66-mile track, Sacks admittedly eased off in turn one, hoping to get some room to make a strong run off turn two.
"[But] on the last lap, I didn't back off down in [turn] one," said Earnhardt, flashing a grin. "Greg laid back a little, and I pulled away coming out of [turn] two a little more than he expected. I was worried about him making a move on the backshoot."
On the long back straightaway, Earnhardt yanked his Chevrolet left behind Bill Elliott's lapped Ford and picked up enough help from the draft to keep Sacks at bay.
"We raced into [turn] three and four," said Earnhardt, "and there I closed the door on him."
Sacks, a winner of only one Winston Cup race in his career, second-guessed his strategy after the checkered flag.
"I felt I had a real shot on the last lap," Sacks said. "I was just waiting to win the race. I laid back [in turn one] and tried to make a run at him. But when he got the draft off Bill, it was hard for me to catch him.
"I was too late getting there. We just came up a lap short. Looking back, I wish I had tried to pass him a lap earlier, but that's racing."
Earnhardt crossed the stripe two cars lengths ahead of Sacks.
Mark Martin, in a Ford, finished three seconds back in third. Ernie Irvan and Michael Waltrip finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
From the green flag, it was a Chevy show. Earnhardt, Sacks and Ken Schrader had the field outclassed from lap one and combined to lead 168 of the 188 laps.
When Schrader's Lumina fell out at the 400-mile mark with a dropped engine valve, Earnhardt got what he wanted - a game of one-on-one.
"That was one less worry," Earnhardt said. "Instead of having to race both Kenny and Greg, I had only Greg to worry about.
"With Schrader around, I was wondering what might happen at the end with 'em being teammates."
Rick Hendrick owns the cars that Schrader and Sacks drive.
"I was wondering about the double team," Earnhardt said.
The Richard Childress team made sure Earnhardt would get the one-on-one deal the driver wanted during the race's final caution flag on laps 169-171.
"Greg and I worked together to pull away [on the final restart]," Earnhardt said. "We could run faster in front, so on the last caution our guys went down to Greg's pit and said we'd work together. We'd push away and then race. He just stayed in tow and pushed away from Martin and Irvan."
Earnhardt took care of the rest. He won despite the fact that many, including Childress, hinted that Sacks may have had a faster car.
"The TV people came over and told me that Sacks said he had a lot left for us on that last lap," Childress said. "I told them we had Earnhardt behind the wheel, so we felt we had the equalizer."
A rich equalizer, at that.
Earnhardt picked up $98,975 of the $752,019 purse to vault past Darrell Waltrip as motorsports' all-time leading money winner. Earnhardt has banked $10,213,178 to Waltrip's $10,201,565.
"He [Waltrip] is just a poor boy, isn't he," a grinning Earnhardt said.
"It's pretty phenomenal, really. I don't know what I did with all that money."
However, he did know what he had done with Sacks.
"I guess we tricked Greg a little on that last lap," Earnhardt said. "It worked this time. But when he reads about it in the press, it won't work next time."
Don't bet on it, though.
\ LUGNUTS: Earnhardt's first Winston 500 win and 42nd career victory enabled him to add 38 points to his lead over Morgan Shepherd, who finished eighth. Through nine of 29 races, Earnhardt leads Shepherd by 90 points. . . . Earnhardt averaged 159.571 mph for the 500-mile trip. The pace was slowed for 30 laps by seven caution flags. . . . The race's only major accident occurred on lap 105, when Hut Stricklin bumped Rusty Wallace sideways in turn four. Ten cars were collected in the accident. The cars of Ricky Rudd, Dale Jarrett, Phil Parsons and Buddy Baker were knocked out of the race. Nobody was injured. . . . Twelve drivers swapped the lead 25 times. Besides Earnhardt (113 laps), only Sacks (35) and Schrader (20) led for more than five laps. . . . An attendance of 140,000 was announced.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB