ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 9, 1997 TAG: 9702070083
SECTION: AUTO RACING PAGE: 25 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
He came on so brash and strong in the early 1970s, looking so boyish and posting a second-place finish in his 14th race.
When he won at Nashville in his 50th start, Darrell Waltrip said, ``I figured I would have won a race a lot sooner than this.''
One evening in January, he stood in the atrium of the First Union building in downtown Charlotte, N.C., articulate as ever but humble now, explaining that he was getting ready to say goodbye.
The elaborate function, complete with laser lights and dry-ice smoke, was staged to unveil a chrome Chevrolet Monte Carlo and the other specially decorated cars Waltrip will drive during his 25th anniversary season.
But with all the tributes and the tone of the evening, it might as well have been a retirement bash. And it underscored how NASCAR is leaving behind the last vestiges of the 1970s and 1980s.
This is a new era, with new tracks, new stars, new excitement.
Harry Gant is gone. So is Junior Johnson. Bill Elliott hasn't won in more than two years. Bobby Allison, tragically, has seen his team collapse.
``I have had a wonderful career,'' Waltrip said. ``I have accomplished things beyond my wildest dreams.''
If someone tells Waltrip his career is over, he answers, ``Yes, but at least I had one.''
He'll be back out there, though, and his status as a former Winston Cup champion means he will not have to sweat much in what is destined for many teams to be the most grueling aspect of a race weekend: qualifying. Waltrip always can fall back on the champion's provisional starting spot.
He'll probably need it more than once.
At least 43 teams are planning to run the full 32-race Winston Cup schedule this year, which means a regular driver will fail to qualify for just about every race.
And at Martinsville and the other short tracks, where the usual starting field of 42 cars plus provisionals is trimmed by as many as six, a half-dozen or more drivers will go home early.
``This is going to be probably one of the tightest and toughest years we've ever seen,'' car owner Rick Hendrick said. ``There's going to be a lot of cars going home early.''
Hendrick's three cars don't figure to be among them. Thanks to Jeff Gordon (1995) and Terry Labonte ('96), Hendrick has won back-to-back titles. Even his ``clunker,'' now driven by Ricky Craven after the departure of Ken Schrader, made the field for every race last year.
Labonte, with Hendrick's equipment and his own remarkable consistency, has found a championship-winning formula that will be tough to beat. Gordon will be in as good a position as anyone to dethrone Labonte. And while they are teammates, there is not much rapport.
``It's one big team, but it's three separate teams,'' Labonte said of the Hendrick operation. ``It's not like we [trade information] all the time, because we're competing against them.''
Car owners Richard Childress and Felix Sabates are fielding multicar teams and will have to go through the same trial-and-error period Hendrick did. Childress has added Mike Skinner to his stable, and Sabates has jumped from one to three teams for the coming season.
``There's going to be a lot of growing pains with some teams,'' Hendrick said. ``I've been through it for a long time and failed at it for a time.''
New teams also face an uphill fight. Derrike Cope, Mike Wallace, Kyle Petty, Chad Little and David Green are all with new one-car teams. They have to survive, for the time being, without the benefit of special NASCAR monetary programs and without provisional starting spots - at least for the first few races.
The biggest changes among teams from 1996 to 1997 is in the shops and the pits. Larry McReynolds, perhaps the most highly regarded crew chief in the series, left Robert Yates to join Dale Earnhardt and the Childress team. Tony Glover left Morgan-McClure Racing to join rookie driver Robby Gordon as crew chief for one of Sabates' teams. Veteran chief Tim Brewer was hired out of limbo to replace Glover. And Paul Andrews left Geoff Bodine to join driver Jeremy Mayfield, and Andrew was replaced by untested Pat Tryson.
The schedule is more crowded than ever in 1997, with 32 points races and 36 total race dates spread over the next 10 months.
On April 6, the inaugural Winston Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway will be run. And on June 22, the new California Speedway will hold its first Winston Cup race.
Also, a second New Hampshire race will be run, this one on Sept.14. The only other significant change in the schedule was the switch of the second Talladega race from late July to October.
There is potential trouble with the schedule, however, because speedway mogul Bruton Smith didn't get a second race at his new Texas palace. Smith says he's certain he'll get a second date this year because NASCAR President Bill France promised him one, and France is a man of his word.
France says the schedule is set in concrete.
Sounds like a controversy.
Smith continues to deny any intention of competing with France for control of the Winston Cup series, or of trying to start his own circuit. But Smith does have big plans. He owns Sears Point International Raceway and says he will build some sort of oval track at the Northern California facility, perhaps a high-banked short track. And he is laying the groundwork to build another big track in a major market he has yet to choose.
As for his relationship with France, Smith said, ``I think Bill is a nice fellow. Once you get to know him, he's a nice fellow. But you people [the media] make him awfully nervous.''
Stick around. There are a few episodes to be written in this saga, even after the one starring Waltrip is concluded.
LENGTH: Long : 103 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN/Staff. Entering his 25th Winston Cupby CNBseason, Darrell Waltrip is getting ready to say goodbye.