Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 28, 1993 TAG: 9308280258
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Last year, the crowd showered him with boos as a track-side mes Results in Scoreboard. B4 sage board flashed the words, "Boo Bodine!" Bodine won the 1992 event after Jeff Burton spun in the first turn late in the race while Bodine pressured him for the lead.
There was no such controversy this year. Bodine took the lead for the first time on lap 162 and led the rest of the way to win by about two car lengths over Joe Nemechek. Bobby Dotter was third, followed by Mike Wallace and Chuck Bown.
"Joe was right there the whole time," said Bodine, who has six victories on the Grand National tour. "He was running good. But it seemed like the longer the race went, the better our car got and he got a little off."
"We had a great race car," Nemechek said. "We were about even with Bodine. We just kind of ran out of laps."
It was a typically brutal Bristol race, even for those who escaped the crashes.
"You're thinking and you're constantly aware of what's going on," Bodine said. "You don't have any time to relax. As fast as this place is, if you do relax, you get into trouble."
And with 34 cars zipping around the .533-mile, high-banked bowl, it didn't take long for trouble to brew.
Rick Wilson and David Green got things started when they collided and spun in the third turn on lap 22, with Green getting the worst of it.
On lap 53, Burton and Shawna Robinson tangled on the front stretch, taking three competitors with them.
Burton's woes were compounded by the condition of his pit, which was thoroughly flooded by a pre-race downpour and seemed better suited to ducks than mechanics when the race started.
Coming in for repairs after the crash, Burton slid through the puddle, nearly hitting a couple of crew members and missing his stop altogether. It didn't much matter, because Burton dropped out a few minutes later, the frame of his car too badly damaged to let him continue.
A four-car crash occurred on the front stretch on lap 97, knocking Dale Jarrett out of the race.
Rick Wilson spun Terry Labonte out of the race and into the second-turn wall on lap 110, earning a one-lap penalty for rough driving and the antipathy of Labonte, who gave Wilson a solid retaliation bump in the first turn before retiring to the pits.
Jack Sprague had two wild rides in seven laps. He spun on lap 174 and then crashed hard into the wall in the second turn on lap 180.
The intensity of the racing was typified by lap 168, when the first and second turns became shrouded in a huge cloud of white smoke. The cars driven by Jim Bown and Hermie Sadler had blown their engines at the same moment.
That brought out one of the 14 caution flags that slowed the race for 70 of 250 laps. In all, 25 cars were involved in spins or crashes.
by CNB