Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 14, 1992 TAG: 9202140139
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE: DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
GIBBS' DEBUT CRASH COURSE
Joe Gibbs lost his first five games as coach of the Washington Redskins, so on Thursday when his first race as a team owner in the NASCAR Winston Cup series ended with a badly crumpled car, he took it in stride.Driver Dale Jarrett lost control of his Chevrolet coming off the fourth turn on lap 36 of the first Twin 125 qualifying race, struck Kyle Petty's Pontiac, then slid into the inside wall at Daytona International Speedway.
Gibbs was watching from his team's pit on the front straight.
"I saw [the pack] come around," he said. "Dale wasn't in it. I knew we were in trouble. And then I saw him sliding down over there.
"My first experience wasn't real good. We got off to a little bit of a bad start, but we'll get the other car fixed up here. We'll start way back, but we hope we can work our way up."
Jarrett's Chevrolet was running "awful good, but it was just one of those deals," said Gibbs, who has lost no time learning how to talk in NASCAR jargon.
Jarrett will start Sunday's Daytona 500 in 35th position, driving his backup car.
\ With the completion of the Twin 125s, the 42-car field for the Daytona 500 is set.
Sterling Marlin and Bill Elliott won the two front-row spots for car owner Junior Johnson with the fastest qualifying laps in time trials last Sunday. Marlin won the pole at 192.213 mph.
Starting positions 3-30 were filled by the top 15 finishers in each 125-mile qualifying race.
Spots 31 through 40 were filled on the basis of qualifying times from those cars not already in the field. And positions 41-42, both provisional spots, went to Alan Kulwicki and Hut Stricklin, who were involved in the big wreck in the first race and weren't fast enough to make the field on their qualifying times.
The crashes in the first Twin 125 allowed several independents, including Phil Barkdoll and Delma Cowart, to make the Daytona 500 field. This will be Cowart's first Winston Cup race since 1987.
\ After crashing two cars in two days, A.J. Foyt had to search the garage area after his qualifying race Thursday to find another car for Sunday's race.
Eddie Bierschwale, who finished 20th in his qualifying race and failed to make the big race, agreed to lend his car to Foyt.
Foyt crashed his own car Wednesday in the multi-car accident at the end of the morning practice session. He drove Rick Mast's backup car Thursday and wrecked it in an eight-car crash on lap 5 of the first Twin 125.
Foyt has the 39th starting position in Sunday's 500 by virtue of his qualifying time in last Sunday's time trials.
\ Davey Allison still can't seem to get any of his fellow Ford drivers to help him draft past other cars.
This lack of cooperation among the Fords - particularly between Allison and Marlin - first surfaced last July at Talladega and reappeared in Saturday's Busch Clash.
On Thursday, Allison was unhappy with Ford driver Morgan Shepherd.
"I'd go inside, and [Shepherd] would go outside," Allison told Ricky Rudd. "Then I'd go outside, and he'd go inside."
Rudd was hardly sympathetic.
"I was glad every time you guys did that," said Rudd, because it allowed him to gain lost ground on the two Fords.
Rudd said his car was strong enough to keep up with the Fords, but the chassis started pushing as the race progressed.
"I was having to breath the throttle in the corner, and that's why I couldn't catch them," he said.
\ Rick Mast survived the carnage of the first Twin 125 and finished sixth, which earned him the 13th starting position in the 500.
"We gained a lot of valuable experience today," Mast told Oldsmobile's Mark Yost. "On a scale of one to 10, we're a five right now. I think we can make it an eight or nine before Sunday."
\ Dorsey Schroeder will start his first Daytona 500 in 31st place.
He finished 16th in his qualifying race, which wasn't good enough to earn him a spot in the 500, but his qualifying time, which was fourth-fastest, did the trick.
Schroeder said he fell back in the qualifying race when his car began pushing.
"Right there at the end, I dropped back into the grasps of those who were trying to race for that last spot in [Sunday's] race," he said.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.