Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 26, 1993 TAG: 9307260139
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: TALLADEGA, ALA. LENGTH: Medium
After 56 laps of trouble-free racing, Gordon brought out the first yellow flag on lap 57 when he made a rookie mistake. He got his left wheels onto the apron coming through the tri-oval.
Gordon spun and hit the outside wall just short of the start-finish line.
For several long seconds, there was no word from the car as crew chief Larry McReynolds tried to contact him by radio.
"Robby, you OK?" McReynolds asked. "Robby, can you talk to me, bud?"
Finally, from the cockpit, Gordon said, "I can hear you, as long as nobody else hits me. I'm OK. What happened, though?"
He soon learned, and later said, "This is not the way I wanted to have the weekend end."
Afterward, car owner Robert Yates seemed none too eager to have another inexperienced stock car driver in his car again anytime soon.
"We're going to get an experienced driver behind the steering wheel and we're going to go back to winning races," Yates told reporters.
\ IRVAN PHILOSOPHICAL: Ernie Irvan was philosophical about his six-inch loss to Dale Earnhardt.
"Dale and I had a heck of a drag race coming to the finish," he said. "It was a great race. I knew he beat me by six or seven inches, maybe a foot, I'm not sure, but I knew he beat me. You've got to take the good with the bad. I've won a few on the last lap and lost a few. Second isn't so bad.
"That last lap didn't work out like I'd planned, but you've got to play the cards you're dealt."
\ ELLIOTT UPSET: Bill Elliott's eyes were shooting darts into Dale Jarrett at the end of Sunday's long, hot race.
On lap 154, Jarrett moved up into Elliott and put him into the outside wall. Elliott did not lose control, but he wasn't a contender after that and finished 11th.
Jarrett wanted to explain to Elliott, but the victim wasn't in much of a mood to discuss it and Jarrett was in the middle of a radio interview.
So we'll let him explain to you:
"My spotter told me I was clear and I moved in and I obviously wasn't clear. I got into Elliott and I really hate that happened."
\ CRASH DETAILS: Ritchie Petty and Rick Mast were among those involved in the six-car crash on lap 70 that critically injured Stanley Smith and sent Jimmy Horton flying out of the park.
"Stanley Smith went into turn one and got into somebody," Petty said. "I moved up the track and he overcorrected and I had nowhere to go. It was as hard a hit as I've ever had. But I only got a knot on my knee."
It was a costly blow to the Maurice Petty-owned team, which operates on a shoestring budget compared to the rest of the teams. But they do have another car.
Mast, meanwhile, said he had the wreck cleared "but somebody caught me in the left front and went over me and turned my car back into the wall.
"That's when it hit so hard. And then I saw a red car [Horton's] going over the wall. And then two or three more cars hit me when I was comin' back down the track."
Mast's only injuries were a stiff neck and a cut on his chin.
Phil Parsons had a unique vantage point for that six-car melee as well as Neil Bonnett's crash, which also involved about six cars.
First, he watched Horton sail over his car and out of the track. Then, he was in the midst of Bonnett's wild ride.
"That's the second car that flew over me today," he said. "It's an amazing sight."
\ ENGINE PROBLEMS: The entire stable of Rick Hendrick-owned Chevrolet Luminas were felled by engine problems soon after the restart of the race following the one hour, 10 minute red flag for Bonnett's crash.
The race restarted on lap 140. Ken Schrader's car died after 143 laps. Jeff Gordon, after running up front all afternoon and leading seven laps, lost his engine after 148 laps.
And at about the same time, Ricky Rudd's engine went sour during one of his best superspeedway runs ever.
"That's it," he radioed around lap 150. "It's barely running."
Rudd limped around the rest of the way and finished 24th, two laps down. Until that problem, he said it was the best car he'd ever had at Talladega.
Jimmy Hensley also was hit by engine problems, but his started right at the beginning of the race. He had a broken spark plug and lost a cylinder. He also nearly got involved in both big crashes. Hensley finished 28th, six laps down.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB