Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 2, 1994 TAG: 9407020063
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
\ The Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway always has been viewed as the halfway point of the Winston Cup season, although this no longer is the case.
With the addition of the Brickyard 400 on August 6, the actual halfway point comes next weekend at New Hampshire, which will be the 16th race in a 31-race year.
But this always has been a calmer, more relaxed race weekend than most, and given that tradition, it's as good a time as any to pause for a moment and assess the 1994 campaign.
For Harry Gant, of course, this is the halfway point - the beginning of the end of his 22-year career in the Winston Cup series. But now, in his final year, all he hopes for is a single victory.
"That's it," he said in a news conference Thursday. "That would satisfy me totally. It doesn't matter where. Just anywhere."
Only three years ago, Gant won five races, including four in a row. He is far from that now, although he said, "I don't feel any different in the car now than I did 10 years ago."
But the 54-year-old veteran's best finish this year is seventh at Charlotte, and even then he was a lap down at the end.
"We've been in some accidents this year and tore up a lot of cars," he said. "It just gets your whole team behind. To win a race now is a lot harder than it was in 1991. The competition is a lot tougher, and there's a lot of new cars running good."
While the new cars have made it tougher to qualify for races, the route to Victory Lane has been clogged by those three win hogs Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace and Ernie Irvan.
They have won 11 of the 14 races, and it will surprise no one if they win just as many in the second half of the season. It may be only a matter of how they split them up.
Each took a moment after Pepsi 400 practice Thursday to grade himself on a 10-scale for the first half of the season.
Irvan, the leader in Winston Cup points with three victories and a top 10 finish in all but two races, was the harshest self-critic.
"I think we're probably around an eight," he said. "We've had a good season - a good first half - but I haven't done everything right and we've had a little motor trouble."
Earnhardt, who is second in points, graded all three top competitors.
"We're probably about a nine," he said. "A 10 would be perfect. And that's where Ernie is at. And Rusty is probably an eight or eight and a half because of losing points at a few races. But Ernie is sitting there in the `10' spot and we've got to get there with him."
Wallace, who comes to Daytona with three straight victories, gave himself the highest grade, although he is third in points.
"I'm a 10 right now," he said. "There's no doubt about it.
"I've won more races. And I probably could have very easily won seven races except for some bad breaks. I've had people tell me I'm stinkin' up the show, but I've only won three in a row. That's not unusual."
The most curious aspect of the dominance of the big three is that it exists in the midst of the greatest parity ever in NASCAR Winston Cup racing.
"But not all 20 teams are as smart as each other," Wallace said. "And not all 20 teams have crew members who can get along real well. And everybody doesn't have the same knowledge."
Wallace discounted the factor of money.
"If you jam dollar bills down the carburetor, it won't make the car run faster," he said.
However, not all teams can afford to take four cars, 10 engines and an entire crew to a test session, as he did last week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Irvan believes the championship already has boiled down to a battle between him, Earnhardt and Wallace.
"Right now, the way I look at it is that it's going to be hard for anybody to come from fourth," he said. "The simple reason is that it would be hard for all three of us to have the kind of trouble it's going to take to catch us."
The odd man out in this equation is Mark Martin, who sits fourth in the championship standings, 313 points behind Irvan.
A few races back, everyone was talking about the big four because the 1993-94 victory statistics didn't look as impressive without including Martin's five wins last year.
But Martin hasn't won yet this year.
That doesn't bother him.
"We didn't win until August last year," he said. "All I can tell you is we were 12th in points last year at this time and now we're fourth. So things are way better than they were a year ago. And it ain't over yet.
"Our time is coming."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB