Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 1, 1993 TAG: 9311010048
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PHOENIX LENGTH: Long
On the third lap, Earnhardt collided with Ken Schrader after driving under him in turn 2, spinning Schrader's car and sending it into the outside wall.
"Earnhardt was coming a ton and he just drove down in there and got a nose under me," Schrader said. "He was gonna try to fill up a hole and he did. It turned me around."
Then, on lap 132, Earnhardt drifted high in the groove in turn 4 while running under Jeff Gordon. His car hit Gordon's and sent it spinning into the wall.
Gordon was furious. "Earnhardt spun me out. I can't believe he did that!" Gordon bellowed on his radio.
Earnhardt thus was blamed not only for wiping out two fellow Chevy drivers, but two-thirds of the Rick Hendrick stable.
"Earnhardt is always the one who cries about the manufacturers' championship when something doesn't go right," Schrader said. "He sure ain't helping us out today."
"I got into Schrader," Earnhardt said. "He came down a little bit and I bumped him there. I hate that happened.
"Then, me and Gordon started racing and I got into him. I had a couple of other close calls. It was just a tough, long day."
In addition to the two yellow flags blamed on Earnhardt, there were five other caution periods, with 32 of the 312 laps run under yellow.
\ RACE TO THE WIRE: Mark Martin's victory Sunday gave Ford a one-point lead over Chevrolet in the battle for the manufacturers' championship and ensured that the contest will be settled with the season-ending Hooters 500 in Atlanta. Pontiac has been eliminated from contention for the title.
Ford has 186 points to Chevy's 185. Pontiac has 180.
Although Chevy had a four-point lead coming into this race, the best-finishing Chevy, driven by Dale Earnhardt, scored four points. That's because it finished behind the top Ford, driven by Martin, and the top Pontiac, driven by Kyle Petty. Martin's victory gave Ford nine points, and Petty earned six for Pontiac.
\ PETTY FARES WELL: Although Kyle Petty's performance was overshadowed by Martin's victory and the championship battle between Earnhardt and Wallace, he led nine laps and finished a solid third.
"We pretty much set up the car hoping it was going to be hot and sunny, and it wasn't," Petty said. "It got a little cloudier as the race went on and the car got to pushing in the middle of the corners. We couldn't really get the time to make the adjustment we needed to make."
\ LONG DAY FOR JARRETT: Dale Jarrett, this year's Daytona 500 winner, is sputtering as the season winds down. He hopes it will end before he loses more ground in the Winston Cup points standings. Jarrett finished 16th on Sunday and never was among the race leaders.
"It was a long day," he said. "We just couldn't get the car working like we wanted. We're working hard to hold on to fourth place in the points, but the way we've been running, that's not going to be easy. We haven't run too well at Atlanta, either, so we've really got our work cut out for us."
Jarrett still has a 114-point lead over Morgan Shepherd, who is fifth in points.
\ BAD LUCK: Geoff Bodine continues to struggle with his new team.
Bodine slowed in turn 2 on the 15th lap when Sterling Marlin spun in front of him. He was hit from behind by Hut Stricklin and spun into the wall in turn 2.
"Nobody runs into anybody out here on purpose, but Hut just ran into me," Bodine said. "I got turned around. And if you get turned around here, you go into the wall. I don't know if I want to go back out there. It's pretty discouraging to get wrecked this early."
Bodine did not return to the track, finishing last in the 43-car field and dropping from 14th to 15th in Winston Cup points.
\ MAST HANGS IN THERE: A minor disaster stymied Rick Mast on Sunday, but it didn't keep the Rockbridge Baths driver from leading six laps and scoring his fifth top 10 finish of the year. He finished on the lead lap in 10th.
"I was lapping some cars - it must have been around lap 120 or lap 130 - when a lapped car got into me and knocked me into the wall," Mast said. "And that knocked the toe-in out. Until that happened, I had a top five car. But when that deal happened, it just killed me."
Mast also hit the wall slightly late in the race, but he said he did that on purpose to try to knock the back end over slightly to offset the front-end damage.
\ HENSLEY HITS THE WALL: Jimmy Hensley brought out the fourth yellow flag on lap 73 when he spun Larry McClure's Chevrolet and hit the wall in turn 4.
"I'd like to blame it on somebody or something but I was kind of by myself," said the Ridgeway driver. "I went in [the turn] a little hard there and got up too high. The car came around and we couldn't correct it and got into the wall."
Hensley completed 242 laps and finished 32nd.
by CNB