THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 20, 1996 TAG: 9602200389
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Comment
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
The most telling words of Speedweeks, it turned out, came from Dale Earnhardt last Thursday after he won his Twin 125 qualifying race at Daytona International Speedway.
``Everyone is talking about teammates,'' he said. ``It's going to get real competitive this year, racing two cars per team and three cars per team, vs. racing one-on-one.
``It's going to be a different trend at Daytona and Talladega. These speedway races are going to be teamwork races. Unfortunately, we've only got one team. We're going to have to go after them alone.''
Little did he know that in the Daytona 500, it would get even worse than that for him.
At the end of NASCAR's big show Sunday, won by Dale Jarrett, Earnhardt was the loneliest driver on the track, riding in second place with nowhere to go and no one willing to help him.
It was not that he was double-teamed by teammates. Two rival drivers - a Ford driver and a Chevy driver - had ganged up on him to keep him from winning the one major NASCAR title that has eluded him.
Chevy driver Ken Schrader and Ford driver Mark Martin had no more sympathy for Earnhardt's agony in the Daytona 500 than a bull has for a rodeo rider. And so Dale Jarrett motored to his second Daytona 500 victory, nervously awaiting the challenge from behind that never came.
This race alone should prompt Earnhardt's car owner, Richard Childress, to add a second team to his one-car stable. That may be the only way Earnhardt will ever get any help to win the Daytona 500.
Martin could not have been plainer about that after emerging from his Ford upon finishing fourth. Martin's own effort had been, unquestionably, the MVP performance in the 500.
Martin had been unusually slow throughout Speedweeks. But on Sunday, with sheer determination, he had driven his turtle far beyond its capabilities and was actually in a position to have a say in the outcome.
``I was going to go with Kenny Schrader,'' Martin said. ``I wanted to see Kenny win. He was not going to go with Dale Earnhardt. He was not.''
In the final laps, at the head of the pack were Jarrett, Earnhardt, Schrader and Martin.
Earnhardt had asked for help from fellow Chevy driver Schrader and was told by his spotter that Schrader would go with him when it came time.
But Earnhardt was forsaken. On the last lap, it was Schrader and Martin who were suddenly a team - a Ford and a Chevy openly working together against him, wholly unwilling to try to help Earnhardt draft past Jarrett.
As it turned out, they could do nothing as a team to get past Earnhardt. But together, they made sure he got no help in challenging Jarrett. And alone, Earnhardt had nothing for Jarrett.
Here is the unspoken message they were sending to the greatest stock car driver of his era:
We're tired of you winning. Your success - your four Winston Cup championships in the 1990s - has come at our expense. And if there is any justice in the world, you will never win the 500. Because you've already had more than your fair share of glory.
Martin, year after year, is a consistent multiple race winner. But he has become so jaded by Earnhardt's uncanny good luck in winning championships that he does not talk about his future in terms of winning championships.
And Schrader, poor Schrader, hasn't won a thing since 1991 and has to endure the humbling reality of being the rehabilitation project in the three-team Rick Hendrick stable. Other than those who have never won, there can be no hungrier driver in the garage.
Of course, none of the veteran, top-line drivers in the garage were happy about the outcome of 1995. It didn't seem right that when the Winston Cup championship door finally opened for someone other than Earnhardt, it opened for a kid, Jeff Gordon, who was only in his third year.
But if Earnhardt thinks he is just going to storm right back to business as usual in 1996, he found out Sunday that Gordon may not be his biggest problem. He found out that there were rivals in the garage who had so little use for his continuing success, they were willing to gang up on him to keep him mired in his career-long Daytona 500 drought. ILLUSTRATION: Dale Earnhardt could have won Sunday with a little help. Natural
rivals teamed up to make sure he didn't get any.
by CNB