ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 26, 1996 TAG: 9602260125
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ROCKINGHAM, N.C.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
AFTER BUMPING BOBBY HAMILTON'S car with 49 laps left, Dale Earnhardt goes on to win the Goodwrench 400.
The story of Sunday's Goodwrench 400 was not that Dale Earnhardt won, but that Bobby Hamilton didn't.
Earnhardt played the bully again, Hamilton was the victim, and the result was that Richard Petty's 12-year winless streak as a driver and car owner will continue for at least one more week.
Earnhardt took the lead from Hamilton with 49 laps to go by nudging his No.43 Pontiac Grand Prix into the fourth turn wall, which effectively ended Hamilton's day.
And while Earnhardt wheeled his black Chevrolet into victory lane for the 69th time, Hamilton wheeled his smoking, battered car into the garage for the 139th straight time, still winless in the seventh year of his pursuit of Winston Cup success.
Hamilton, who led 36 of the final 100 laps, was furious. He seemed to have as much steam coming out of his ears as was coming out of the damaged radiator of his car.
``I haven't won seven championships and I haven't won 80-something races, but I'm smart enough to know you don't do stuff like that this early in the season,'' Hamilton said, trying to make it to the privacy of his team's transporter. ``That's an end of the season move.
``He plain hit me,'' Hamilton said. ``It wasn't close at all.''
Hamilton's chances didn't actually end until lap 366, when he suddenly spun in turn two and hit the outside wall. But he and his team were convinced that damage from the first wall-banger caused the second one.
Earnhardt, back in the tough-guy mode for 1996, was none too sympathetic.
``We just got together and bumped a bit over in turn four,'' he said. ``We were coming through the corner and there were some bumps down there. We were bumping along there side by side and we just bumped together. He was lucky. He corrected and saved it. There could have been a serious crash.''
But reporters pressed Earnhardt on the subject.
``You'll have to watch the replay,'' he replied when asked if he got into Hamilton. ``We were racing close. I didn't turn the steering wheel into him. We just bumped. When we got together, I tried to get off of it as quick as he got away from me. That ain't what put him out of the race.''
Not so, according to Hamilton and his team.
After Hamilton's encounter with the wall, a yellow flag flew, Hamilton made a pit stop, his crew pulled a fender off the tire and he went back out in eighth place.
``We're working for a good finish,'' crew chief Robbie Loomis told his driver just before the green flag flew again. ``Let's be calm and get everything we can.''
``We're going to win this thing!'' Hamilton said.
But his car wasn't the same at full speed. And 22 laps after the Earnhardt incident, Hamilton crashed by himself. Hamilton blamed it on trying too hard, but his team said a bent trailing arm in the right rear of the chassis probably was the culprit.
In any event, Hamilton and his team were out of it. Hamilton completed 383 laps and finished 24th. The driver and crew were in a sour mood again by the time the race ended.
``Talk to the driver, man,'' said Petty, who owns Hamilton's car. ``I didn't see it. What can I say? It just wasn't our day. But we had a lot of help in it not being our day, though.''
Loomis said: ``Earnhardt was getting beat by somebody new and he couldn't take it. I'm sure he'll say it was an accident. And I'm sure if it happens the other way around, it'll be an accident, too.''
Earnhardt led 95 laps of the 393-lap race that was dominated by Terry Labonte. Labonte led 198 laps, but departed after 235 laps with engine failure. Jimmy Spencer led 53 laps, but also fell out with engine problems.
Then it was the Earnhardt-Hamilton show.
And when Earnhardt crossed the finish line after another day at the office, he was still thinking about his own disappointment last weekend at Daytona, where he failed to win the 500 for the 18th straight time.
``It ain't the Daytona 500,'' he told his crew on the radio, ``but it's the Goodwrench 400. And it feels good.''
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Dale Earnhardt (right) gets into the car of Bobbyby CNBHamilton near the end of Sunday's Goodwrench 400. color. KEYWORDS: AUTO RACING