THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994 TAG: 9406050196
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940605 LENGTH: DOVER, DEL.
Jimmy Spencer finished fourth, followed by pole winner Ricky Craven.
{REST} The race was marred by two metal-crunching tire failures that ended the day for Bobby Dotter and Harry Gant and injured Dotter and a crewman.
Wallace took the lead on lap 135 of the 200-lap race during the sixth of eight yellow flags. Labonte was right on his bumper during the final laps. But Wallace's car was strong, and Labonte was unable to attempt a pass.
``I don't know how to express it,'' said Wallace, 35, second-oldest of the three racing Wallace brothers. ``It's so great, it's so wonderful. I hope it's the start of many. We've struggled and struggled and we're just thrilled to death.
``The car was good all day,'' he added. ``I had a problem getting into fourth gear on the restart before (the last one), so I pumped the clutch up real good before the last restart and I got a little run on Terry.''
Said Labonte: ``I just couldn't get a run at him.''
There were six accidents, but the most serious were the two involving Dotter and Gant.
Dotter blew a tire in turn four on lap 96. His car slammed hard into the outside wall, lost a tire and then hit the inside wall.
The tire jumped the inside wall and hurtled down pit road at a speed that must have exceeded 100 mph.
Only one crewman, Robert Owing of Johnny Benson's crew, was over the wall at the time. Owing must have had thoughts about trying to stop the tire, because he stood in its path and did not try to jump out of the way.
The tire mowed him down, knocking his left leg out from under him and slamming him to the pavement. Owing was reported in fair condition Saturday afternoon at Kent General Hospital in Dover with a broken left leg.
Dotter, complaining of shoulder pains, was X-rayed at the same hospital. Both he and Owings were to be transported from Dover to a hospital in Charlotte.
Gant's right front tire blew with a loud bang right in front of the press box above the entrance of the first turn on lap 133, and his car slammed hard into the wall. But he was unhurt.
``Well, I hit it a ton. It was hard,'' he said.
Craven, with his fifth-place finish, took the lead in the Grand National championship race and has a 48-point edge over David Green, who finished 15th. Kenny Wallace, who was the leader coming into the race, finished 38th after his engine failed and dropped to fourth place in points.
Chesapeake's Elton Sawyer finished 13th, on the lead lap, despite an unscheduled pit stop that dropped him to the rear of the field.
``We had a problem with the overflow fuel vent that forced us to make two stops under caution,'' he said. ``That put us way behind. We had an awfully good car, but it was just tough to pass anybody today.''
SECOND-DAY QUALIFYING: The second round of time trials for today's Budweiser 500 was the least eventful of the 1994 season, even though 11 drivers participated.
Brett Bodine, who messed up his qualifying lap Friday, was the fastest Saturday at 149.944 mph, which would have put him in the fifth starting spot had he done it a day earlier. He'll start 21st instead.
Terry Labonte was second-fastest at 149.732 mph, followed by Jeff Gordon at 149.007. Michael Waltrip, who crashed in practice Friday, was 34th-fastest.
The only drivers who failed to make the race were Norm Benning, who was too slow, and Andy Belmont, who blew two Robert Yates motors in practice and was unable to attempt a qualifying lap. The provisional starting spots went to Mike Wallace and Brad Teague.
HOT STREAKS: You want to know how good Ernie Irvan and Dale Earnhardt are right now?
Both are tied with an average finish of 5.54 for the first 11 races of the season.
By comparison, Earnhardt won last year's Winston Cup championship with an average finish for the season of 8.20. And when the late Alan Kulwicki won the 1992 championship, he had an average finish for the 29 races of 10.58. by CNB