Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 26, 1993 TAG: 9304260065
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
It had been an exhausting day for Hensley, of nearby Ridgeway. But he was the last driver to leave the track.
A rough-running engine of Kulwicki's Ford Thunderbird caused him to lose five laps to the field. He eventually finished 13th.
And as soon as he got out of the car, he took a seat in front of an electric fan and draped himself in ice packs and cold towels.
"Well, we had a miss all day," he said. "And we had a little push in the middle of the corner. We finally got that worked out and got the miss out of it, but we were already down a bunch of laps by then. But I guess we had a pretty good day. It was still rolling at the end."
\ A SURPRISE GUEST: A surprise guest at the track Sunday was the late champion's father, Gerald Kulwicki.
The elder Kulwicki flew from his Milwaukee-area home on Wednesday to help executor Felix Sabates administer his late son's estate. Sabates said he convinced the reluctant father to come to the race.
"I've been begging him to come," Sabates said.
Before the race, the soft-spoken Kulwicki sat in the back of his son's hauler, chatted with team members and even signed an autograph or two.
"I wasn't even going to come down," he said. "If they would have had it on [live] TV, I would have watched it. But I decided to come down and see how the boys are doing."
Representatives of Winston, the series sponsor, invited Kulwicki to their suite to watch the race.
\ EARNHARDT IN ACTION: He never led a lap and he finished 22nd with engine problems, but Dale Earnhardt provided a good part of the action in a race that could have used a lot more.
Starting 21st after a poor qualifying effort, Earnhardt clawed through the field and was seventh by lap 100. Sixty laps later, he was fifth.
But the real move of the day came on lap 200, when a yellow flag flew for debris on the track.
Despite the disadvantage of pitting on the backstretch, where competitors usually lose several positions during yellow flag pit stops, Earnhardt three spots. He came back on the track in second, right on leader Wallace's bumper.
"It's definitely a disadvantage pitting on the back, but the guys made the most of it. They had some great stops," Earnhardt said. "I hate it all went to waste."
Earnhardt was still riding in second around lap 335 when a valve spring apparently broke in his engine and smoke began to belch out of the exhaust. He fell back steadily after that and finished 453 of the 500 laps.
\ FRONT-RUNNERS' TROUBLES: For the second week in a row, Geoff Bodine discovered that starting at the front of the field meant nothing but trouble.
Last week at North Wilkesboro, where he started on the outside pole, Bodine crashed on the first lap after a tap from Ernie Irvan.
This week, after winning the pole and setting a track record, he spun on the second lap after a tap from Kyle Petty.
Bodine's reaction was virtually the same: "Who the hell did that?!" Then he added, "That's two weeks in a row. I just don't appreciate this . . . "
Sixteen laps later, he and Wally Dallenbach collided. Dallenbach slammed the third turn wall and was the first car out of the race.
Bodine continued and his car seemed reasonably strong all afternoon. He finished sixth, three laps down. \
STRICKLIN'S BAD LUCK: The unluckiest driver of the day was outside pole sitter Hut Stricklin.
Stricklin led the first 87 laps and was still running among the leaders when he made a yellow-flag pit stop around lap 288.
While his car was being serviced, rookie Jeff Gordon bumped into it and knocked it off its jack. That cost Stricklin a lap, so NASCAR decided it should cost Gordon a lap, too, and penalized him.
For Stricklin, however, things got worse.
"When I went back out, the rear end just broke," he said.
Stricklin finished 26th. Gordon eventually dropped three laps off the pace, but still finished eighth.
\ MAST RUNS WELL: Despite brake problems, Rick Mast had a reasonably good afternoon and finished 11th, four laps down, right behind Mark Martin.
"Well, we made one [chassis] change three different times during the race and each time that fixed the race car," he said. "But during one run a bleeder valve on the brake caliper came loose and we lost all the brake fluid. That took three laps to fix. But when we got that fixed and got the car adjusted right, I was decent then."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB