Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407030150
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. LENGTH: Long
Jimmy Spencer, the self-styled "Mr. Excitement," needed the entire final lap to pull off a pass that slingshot master Buddy Baker taught him. After bumping and banging with Irvan in a side-by-side battle through the final two turns, Spencer's Ford Thunderbird edged ahead by a few feet at the finish line.
"A trick Buddy Baker taught me when I first started driving at this race track was to sweep on the outside [coming off turn 2]," Spencer said. "I never forgot the move. You had two hard chargers there, and we gave `em a heck of a finish."
This was a classic NASCAR finish. And in one fell swoop, it redeemed Spencer, ended car owner Junior Johnson's 20-month winless streak and lifted the sport out of the doldrums of a string of less-than-stellar races.
Dale Earnhardt finished third, just ahead of Mark Martin and more than a second behind the two leaders. Ken Schrader was fifth, followed by Geoff Bodine, Todd Bodine, Jeff Gordon, Morgan Shepherd and Lake Speed.
Spencer led only the last lap. Actually, he led only a couple of hundred yards of the 400-mile event. He was in front for about two seconds of a race that lasted 2 hours and 34 minutes.
For the 37-year-old Berwick, Pa., native still trying to live down the big crash he caused at Talladega in May, there was no better way to win his first Winston Cup race.
Earnhardt was half-expecting a big Spencer-Irvan wreck in the final lap and a free ride to Victory Lane. But the two drivers who have taken the most guff in recent years for overaggressive driving put on a display of clean, hard racing.
"I just congratulate [Ernie] for giving me enough room to race him," Spencer said. "I saw Petty and Pearson do it [in 1976] and have a heck of a crash."
"He drove a good race," said Irvan, who led 86 laps. "When you can pass somebody one on one in the final lap, that's pretty stout. Jimmy just had a very good shot at me. He hasn't had an awful lot of time practicing that stuff, so he did pretty good."
Everyone, including Irvan,could see this finish brewing well before it happened.
With 40 laps to go, Spencer took a few extra seconds in the pits so his crew could adjust the chassis of his Ford.
"I told crew chief Mike Hill I couldn't win the race the way we were," Spencer said, "I said, `Mike, I'm driving my tail off, and I ain't going to win the race this way. I had to lift a little bit [in the turns]. Well, we fixed it."
The long stop shuffled Spencer back in the pack of lead-lap cars, but he remained confident.
With 30 laps to go, he was 12th. With 20 to go, he was fifth.
On lap 146 of the 160-lap race, he had moved past Martin into fourth and was ready to challenge Earnhardt. Soon, he was around Earnhardt, too, and was after Irvan, who had moved ahead of the pack.
From lap 151 to lap 153, he made up a deficit of 10 car lengths on Irvan and began camping on his rear bumper.
Then Spencer began trying the highest of edges of the high groove in turns 1 and 2. Was he losing the handle or just testing his limits? After several laps, it was clear. He was testing.
"He's pretty stout," Irvan radioed his team with three laps to go.
On lap 199, Irvan cut off an attempt by Spencer to pass on the inside of the backstretch. But after the white flag flew, Spencer sped into turn 1 and went to the wall.
"My car was real free on the top of the race track, and his car would get loose on the bottom," Spencer said. "And every time I got underneath Ernie, it made him run faster. I stayed as high as I could and I expected that when he slid back up the track, his air and my air were going to meet and he would have to lift. And that's exactly what happened."
Using the momentum of his sweep through turns 1 and 2, Spencer slung his car to the left on the backstretch and got side by side with Irvan before Irvan had a chance to block.
"I squeezed a little and he squeezed a little and I got a little ahead and that was it," Spencer said.
Most of the teams, willing to let bygones be bygones, cheered the new winner as he came down pit road on his first trip to victory lane.
"That meant more to me than anything," Spencer said.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of his win was that Spencer passed Irvan all by himself, with no drafting assistance - almost unheard of in the era of restrictor plate racing, except by Earnhardt.
Irvan, in fact, sounded a note of doubt on that subject.
"It will be interesting to see how he goes through [post-race inspection]," he said. "Nobody passes me all day and then somebody does it one on one."
But Spencer's Ford sailed through inspection.
As for his reputation, Spencer can now point to some results.
"I'm no more aggressive than the guys that have been winning the races this year," he said.
Johnson added: "We don't have no intention of trying to change him."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB