Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 25, 1994 TAG: 9404240211
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Unquestionably it was the most dramatic second-round qualifying session so far in 1994.
When it was over, eight drivers were on their way home, including Harry Gant, the biggest star yet to fail to make a race in 1994. Gant said he would watch today's race on television from his home in Taylorsville, N.C.
Nearly everyone who was outside the top 20 after Friday's first round of time trials chose to requalify Saturday. In hindsight, nearly all came to realize they had made a mistake.
The casualty list Saturday, in order of finish, consisted of Curtis Markham, Mike Wallace, Loy Allen, Gant, Jim Bown, Wally Dallenbach, Mike Skinner and Dave Marcis.
At the same time, a half-dozen drivers who seemed destined to go home after poor Friday runs pulled out clutch performances and made the field. The drivers who were not in the top 34 Friday (there are 34 regular starting spots), but made it Saturday were Dick Trickle, John Andretti, Jay Hedgecock, Jeff Burton, Ward Burton and Lake Speed.
The provisional starting spots went to Brett Bodine, who plummeted from 23rd fastest to 35th, and Chuck Bown, who dropped from 34th to 37th.
Only two drivers outside the top 20 after the first session - Bobby Labonte and Steve Grissom - decided to stand on their Friday speeds.
Nearly everyone assumed the track would be faster on this bright, sunny Saturday than it had been on Friday when it was cold and cloudy. Usually a track becomes slower on a sunny day, but everyone thought it would be faster here because the cold tires hadn't hooked up well under Friday's gloomy weather.
The track, in fact, was faster during Saturday morning practice. And that prompted most everyone outside the top 20 to elect to requalify.
But two things combined to dramatically change conditions and slow the track down. First, it got warmer as the day went on. Second, for a full hour before the second round started, the All-Pro stock cars were qualifying for their race and putting down a layer of tire rubber that made the track slicker.
"I'll be the temperature went up 10 degrees in that hour," said non-qualifier Marcis, who dropped from 28th fastest to dead last in 44th. "That probably made the race track temperature go up 30 degrees. Our car just wouldn't hook up.
"We felt like we could be better" on Saturday than Friday, Marcis said. "We joined a lot of other people making that decision. It wasn't right. It would have been real easy to stand on our time. We would have moved forward instead of backwards."
Besides Marcis, Skinner, Wallace, Dallenbach, Jim Bown and Gant would have made the race on their Friday speeds if they had stood on them. Instead, they requalified, slowed down and earned an early trip home.
\ GREEN WINS: Grand National regular David Green, fresh off his win at Bristol and cherry picking on the NASCAR All-Pro series Saturday, won the Hanes 150 by a second over Bobby Gill.
Green led the final 134 laps.
"Bobby Gill - he was tough all day," Green said. "But my car got better and better and better.
"I know it probably looks easier, but these cars are tough," Green said. They're so much different than the Busch cars. They're so light, they are faster on the straights. And they get in the corners good, but they have so much power, they can't get out without the wheels spinning."
Rich Bickle was third, followed by Jody Ridley and Rick Crawford.
\ NIXON AND PETTY: The death of former President Nixon on Friday night prompted reflection among the Petty family because Nixon was the first president to ever invite a stock car driver to the White House.
It was Richard Petty, of course, and it happened around 1971.
Petty was not here Saturday, but his son, Kyle, said: "He's got pictures of it in the office. It was a big deal at the time because it was really the first time a stock car racer had been up there."
\ NORTH AND GIBBS: Speaking of political figures tinged by scandal, Oliver North, the former Marine who parlayed his role in the Iran-Contra affair into a U.S. Senate candidacy, will be the guest of car owner Joe Gibbs at the track today.
North, who is campaigning to be the Republican nominee for the Senate from Virginia, will be here with his son, Stuart, to visit fans and drivers and take a trip around the track during the parade lap.
Gibbs, meanwhile, was in Orlando, Fla., Saturday for a television appearance before flying back to North Carolina to see his oldest son, J.D., run his first late model stock car race at Concord Motor Speedway. J.D. also is a race-day pit crewman, changing left side tires on his father's car, which is driven by Dale Jarrett.
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB