
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, October 1, 1995                   TAG: 9510020123
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MORTH WILKESBORO, N.C.                                 LENGTH: Medium

IRVAN HALFWAY TO FINISH LINE

It was half a race for Ernie Irvan Saturday at North Wilkesboro Speedway, but that was a lot better than no race at all.

While open-wheel ace Mike Bliss won his first NASCAR truck race, Irvan dropped out halfway through the race and finished 30th in the 32-truck field competing in the Lowe's 150. But Irvan led 24 of the first 76 laps and looked as sharp as ever as he battled in tight traffic on this 5/8-mile oval.

``Our day will come another day,'' Irvan said. ``It's not really how I wanted to finish, but we were trying to do too much during halftime.''

Irvan's truck had become wildly loose by the end of the first half of the race and he had fallen back to seventh. In an effort to improve the handling, crew chief Larry McReynolds, with Irvan's permission, tried to adjust the front sway bar during the five-minute intermission halfway through the race.

Unfortunately, McReynolds couldn't get the sway bar reattached to the chassis and Irvan called it quits after losing a number of laps while McReynolds struggled with the part.

``That's just part of racing,'' Irvan said. ``It was handling pretty bad. It was like I had two flat tires on the rear. Sometimes you can change a sway bar in two minutes and sometimes it takes 50 minutes. It all depends on whether the splines are lined up.''

Although Irvan looked like the Irvan of old when he was racing door to door with Geoff Bodine and Jack Sprague around lap 30, he said he's not. The visible difference, of course, is that he's now racing with an eye patch covering his left eye, which is still plagued by double vision some 13 months after the crash that nearly killed him.

``I'd be teasing everybody to say I'm just as good as the day I wrecked in Michigan,'' he said. ``I've got somewhat of a learning curve. It's just going to take a little bit of time, a little patience and more racing.''

Irvan's comeback overshadowed a stirring victory by Bliss, a 30-year-old sprint- and midget-car driver from Oregon who's been tearing up the USAC open wheel divisions the past few years.

Bliss took the lead with 21 laps to go and beat Butch Miller by 1.14 seconds. Bodine was third, followed by Sprague and Ron Hornaday, Jr. Truck points leader Mike Skinner finished 10th and now has a 25-point lead over Joe Ruttman, who was sixth.

Keywords:
AUTO RACING

by CNB