Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 28, 1994 TAG: 9403280065
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DARLINGTON, S.C. LENGTH: Medium
One was exhaustion. Another was a Goodyear tire shortage.
Even though the race was reduced from 500 to 400 miles this year, drivers crawled out of their cars like whipped dogs after the 3-hour, 1-minute grind.
After finishing second, Mark Martin conducted interviews while sitting, totally exhausted, against the gas pumps behind the pits. A few feet away, fourth-place finisher Dale Jarrett did the same thing. The face of third-place finisher Bill Elliott was almost as red as his T-Bird when he got out of his car.
"I'll tell you what: For 400 miles, this was a tough one," Elliott said. "Man, the tires would go for about 15 laps, and from then on you were just hanging on."
"It was the humidity - you're just sucking hot wind," Martin said.
"Ten laps after you put tires on, they go away," said Ridgeway's Jimmy Hensley, who finished a creditable 13th, two laps down. "After that, it's like wrestling a bear. You go in the corner, cut it right, cut it left. And with no cautions [during most of the second half of the race], it just wore you out."
Because most teams were pitting for fresh rubber every 35 laps and at each yellow flag (there were five during the race), the supply of new Goodyear radials quickly ran out.
Race-winner Dale Earnhardt came prepared. He had 18 sets of tires in his pits - and used 14 sets.
But other pits were not as well-stocked, so each time a driver fell out of the race, representatives from scores of other teams descended on his pit to plead for the leftover tires.
"We had half of our team out ready to grab tires," said car owner Robert Yates, whose driver, Ernie Irvan, finished sixth. "We probably ended up with about 25 sets. But if there had been cautions, we would have needed them."
Shortly after the halfway point, NASCAR announced a mid-race rules change. Teams were allowed to switch tire brands, without penalty, if they wished.
Goodyear had sold all the tires it had at the track. And the Goodyear building in the infield was as quiet as a South Carolina plantation on a stifling July day.
The one-time rules waiver was strictly for Goodyear. With only five drivers in the field, Hoosier had hundreds of extra tires, since both companies are required to bring enough for every team.
"We did not ask NASCAR to do anything," said Goodyear's Wayne Torrence. "We kept them informed of the situation but made no request for them to do anything."
"It was a committee decision," said Mike Helton, NASCAR's vice president of competition. "The decision was based on the fact that there wasn't a large enough supply [of Goodyears] and we told them how many to bring."
Because there were no yellow flags for the last 106 laps, most teams had enough tires. Only two Goodyear drivers - Todd Bodine and Joe Nemechek - used Hoosiers, although Harry Gant had two sets in his pit in case he needed them.
"We put two sets of Hoosiers on, but they didn't seem to last as long as the Goodyears," Nemechek said. "We saved a set of Goodyears for the end . . . "
Bodine said the Hoosiers "just made the car real loose."
\ MAST 37TH: Rick Mast finished 37th when his engine blew after 178 laps. "To start with, we've got this stupid, darn tire war we've got to deal with," said the driver from Rockbridge Baths. "We fought with that . . . but got most everything sorted out to at least where we were going to get us a good, solid top 10 [finish], but something blew up - engine, rear end or something."
\ BURTONS TOGETHER: The Burton brothers finished 20th and 21st, Jeff ahead of Ward. Although Jeff Burton was hampered at the start when his car wouldn't start because of a bad spark plug, his finish was the best for a car running on Hoosiers.
by CNB