THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407030253
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. LENGTH: Long : 109 lines
Mr. X put the excitement back into stock car racing Saturday with an old-fashioned last lap slingshot of Ernie Irvan to win the Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway.
It was Jimmy Spencer's first victory.
Spencer, self-proclaimed ``Mr. Excitement,'' needed the entire final lap to pull off a pass that slingshot master Buddy Baker taught him. But 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 two, an elated Spencer said after the race. ``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, but 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. In fact, 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 two hours, 34 minutes.
But for the 37-year-old Berwick, Pa., native, who is still trying to live down a big crash he caused at Talladega in May, there was no better way to win his first Winston Cup race.
Earnhardt said he was 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 overly aggressive driving put on a display of clean, hard racing.
``I just congratulate (Ernie) for giving me enough room to race him,'' Spencer said.
``He drove a good race,'' said Irvan, who dominated the race, leading 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 actually 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 recalled. ``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 was confident he could move up.
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 out on his rear bumper.
Then Spencer began trying the highest of edges of the high groove in turns one and two. Was he losing the handle or just testing his limits? After several laps of this, it was clear. He was testing.
``He's pretty stout,'' Irvan told his team on the radio 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 one 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 roundhouse haymaker of a sweep through turns one and two, Spencer slung his car to the left on the backstretch and got side by side with Irvan before he had a chance to block.
From there, it was just a matter of mashing the gas pedal and hanging on. But Spencer had the inside line now. The momentum stayed with him to the finish line.
``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 he was able to pass Irvan all by himself, with no drafting assistance. That is 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) tech'' inspection, the runner-up 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.
Added car owner Johnson: ``We don't have no intention of trying to change him.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Jimmy Spencer, in the McDonald's Ford Thunderbird, slipped past
Ernie Irvan and held on to take his first checkered flag.
by CNB