The Charlotte Observer du lieu suivant : Charlotte, North Carolina • 98

12D THE CHARLOTTE OBSERVER Sunday February 11 1990 HASCAR TEAMS Get Your Scorecard Car No 1990 Dv-herrn Driver Team Ownit Crow Chid Comment Car Primary Sponsor leady For Racing of Days Inn Skoal None Goodwrench Kodak Levi Garrett Don Gibbs Richard Jackson OK Ulrich Richard Childress Morgan-McClure Racing Rick Hendrick Jack Roush Kulwicki Stavo la Brothers Harry Melling Bob Whitcomb Junior Johnson David Ittt Richard Jackson Bobby Jones Kirk Shelmerdine Tony Glover Waddell Wilson Robin Pemberton Paul Andrews Harry Hyde Mike Beam Buddy Parrott Tim Brewer Ford Olds Pontiac Chevy Olds Chevy Ford Ford Buick Ford Chevy Ford 01 Mickey GibbsNone 1 Terry LabontePhil Parsons 2 Trevor BoysErnie liven 3 Dale EarnhardtEarnhardt 4 Phil ParsonsRick Wilson 5 Ricky RuddGeoff Bodine 6 Mark MartinMartin I Alan KulwickiKulwicki 8 Bobby HillinHillin a BIN ElliottElliott 10 Derrike CopeCope 11 Geoff BodineTerry Labonte Lots of raw talent needs polishing New Combo Quietly Confident In rebuilding process Top Gun driver has firepower for fourth championship NO "developments" be positive? Has championship potential Sensational season expected and likely Shop changes should help Move to one-car team can't hurt Appears back in '85 '138 form Surprise team of 1990? Driver change benefits ail 0 Po Ives Zama Snickers Coors Purolator Budweiser Combined driverowner comeback effort 12 Nike AlexanderNone Buick Raybestos Jimmy Fennig Bobby Allison Tex Powell Olds Copenhagen Vet has the fire but fails to finish very often 14 AJ FoytFoyt Foyt Ford Notorcrott Bud Mom New combo has lots of savvy 15 Morgan ShepherdBrett Bodine Bud Moore Buick Unnamed David Pearson Ricky Pearson Lack of sponsor clouds hopes 16 Larry PearsonPearson Jett Hammond Rick Hendrick Chevy Tide 17 Darrell WaltripWaltrip Al Rime money leader banks a lot more Chuck Lithe Chuck Little 19 Chad LittleNone Ford Bull's Eye West Coast champ finally gets break Olds Crown Dick 20 Rob MorosoNone Steve Byrd Hottest rookie prospect In years Eddie Wood Wood Brothers 21 Neil BonnettBonnett Ford Citgo Team likely to regain lost form Richard Broome Rick Hendrick 25 Ken SchraderSchrader Chevy Kodiak Team is loaded doesn't deny it Buick Quaker State Larry McReynolds Kenny Bernstein New pairing has lot to prove 26 Brett BodineRicky Rudd Pontiac Miller Intent on defense of title Berry Dodson Raymond Beadle 27 Rusty WallaceWallace Robert Yates Yates Ford Texaco Has speed to win several races 28 Davey AllisonAllison Chuck Rider Pontiac Billy Ingle Country TimeMaxwell House All the tools to triumph 30 Michael WaltripWaltrip Marc Reno Pontiac Sears Cal-Car Sports 32 Joe RuttmanNone Longtime driver straps in again Leo Jackson Olds Skoal Andy Petree 33 Harry GantGant He's "Hurryin' Harry" Again Felix Sabates Pontiac Peak Gary Nelson 42 Kyle PettyPetty Likely sports most Improved team Dale Inman Pontiac SIP Lynda Petty 43 Richard PettyPetty King dreams of sweet season after '89 nightmare 44 Jim SauterSauter Bob Tullius Bob Tullius Pontiac None Team flashed promise in '89 Olds None 47 Jack PenningtonPennington Close Racing Tony Funr Dirt tracker continues switch to asphalt 52 Jimmy MeansMeans Marsha Means Johnny Davis Pontiac Aka-Settzer Admirable effort runs another year the same position with the high-powered Melling Racing operation That's the outfit of Bill Elliott 1988 national driving champion and one of auto racing's biggest winners during the 1980s Beam's move is significant beyond several other changes that took place in the off-season among crewmen and mechanics It marks the first time an "outsider" has been given such responsibility with Team Elliott an extremely tight family effort since the drawling redheaded clan of papa George Elliott and sons Bill Ernie and Dan first rolled Out of the north Georgia hills into Winston Cup racing in 1979 Beam 35 a native of Hickory takes over crew chief duties from Ernie Elliott at 42 the eldest brother Ernie will continue as team manager and probably most importantly chief engine builder NASCAR insiders were surprised when Beam's job switch was announced in late November First Bahari Racing owners Chuck Rider and Lowrance Harry are considered among the sport's most progressive providing benefits matched by few other teams Their team generally has been tagged among the most promising for the 1990s Second anyone stepping into such a critical position with the high-profile Elliott team faces an incredible amount of pressure The boyish-faced Beam smiled when pressure was mentioned Saturday at the big track where Elliott will drive the famous No 9 Ford he has helped prepare in today's Busch Clash special event "Pressure? I say the word that applies here in my case is dedication" said Beam "I'm dedicated to winning and that's a big reason I'm with the Elliott team This opportunity this job is like a dream come true" The implication is clear Beam made his move to Dawsonville Ga because he wants to savor winning very big now rather than waiting for the Bahari outfit to mature into a consistent contender Elliott has rolled to 32 victories since first winning in 1983 It's anticipated that Waltrip will score his first triumph this season "Awesome Bill" said the arrival of Beam is viewed as a pivotal part of his drive to regain the Winston Cup championship and dominance like the team's 11-win dream season of 1985 And what is the reaction of Beam quiet and easy going to the high expectations he has roused? "I just hope that old mountain saying 'A new broom sweeps better' turns out to be true" 57 Jimmy SpencerHut Stricklin Rod Osteriund Doug Richert Pontiac Heinz Surprise driver change in oft-season DAYTONA BEACH Fla As new season looms NASCAR Winston Cup Series stock car racing has been swept by winds of thange And they haven't been mere breezes The buffeting the sport has between last season and the one cranking up this week at Daytona In- ternational t-' Nte s' 'I Speedway rel- 410 -) atively has amounted to a storm of hurri'' ti- cane force 4--- 1 As prepara- rrSr tions progress A -k to leading to the 1 season-opening Daytona Motorsports 500 next Sun- Tom day a dozen Higgins top drivers are i in rides differ) ent from those I they had in Additionally six new Winston Cup teams with fair to good have been formed 1 Among the competitors switch ing to once-rival organizations are 1984 Winston Cup champion Labonte Geoff Bodine i Morgan Shepherd Ricky Rudd Phil Parsons Brett Bodine Rick I Wilson Dale Jarrett Dick Trickle Jimmy Spencer Butch Miller and i Ernie Irvan Operations new to motorsports' i big time will field cars for Busch Series champion Rob Moroso Chad Little Joe Ruttman Mickey Gibbs Stan Barrett and Phil Bark-doll Perhaps the most-watched changes will be those of Labonte I Geoff Bodine and Rudd Not renewed was Labonte's con: tract with the Junior Johnson team the sport's winningest over the past 15 years with 127 victories and six championships After plan- ning to begin his own team La: bonte landed instead with the highly promising Olds outfit owned by Richard Jackson I Geoff Bodine similarly let go by 1 Hendrick Motorsports succeeded Labonte in Johnson's Ford Rudd jumped from Kenny Bernstein's King Racing to join the Hendrick Chevrolet team managed by Waddell Wilson In a soap-opera twist Rudd's old ride is being taken by Geoff Bodine's brother Brett However the change that could produce the greatest impact on the 1990 season hasn't been very visit ble This is the realignment that took Mike Beam from his post as 1 crew chief of driver Michael Waltrip's Bahari Racing team to i 1 1 0 JD'' oroso's i 0 It 66 Dick TrickleDale Jarrett Cale Yarborough Doug Williams Pontiac Phillips 66 Testing the "Trickle-down" theory 70 JD McDuffieMcDuffie Mc Duffle Jett NcDuffie Pontiac Rumple Furniture Among last of sport's "privateers" 71 Dave MarcisMarcis Marcls Bart Creasman Che5t None will run when where money allows 72 Stan BarrettNone Steve Barkdoll Ex-stuntman seeks new career Cliff Champion Olds Ultra Slim Fast 73 PM BarkdollNone Steve Barkdoll Cliff Champion Olds None Driver races for fun not money 75 Rick WilsonMorgan Shepherd Butch MockBob Rohl fly Butch Mock Olds Dinner BellFood Uon Driver fits team's Whore philosophy Olds None 83 Lake SpeedSpeed Speed Speed Lack of backer may slow Speed team Dennis Connor Pontiac None 88 Date JarrettJimmy Spencer BM Edwards Team in midst of drastic changes Ford Tru Cur 90 Ernie IrvanStan Barrett Junk) Donlavey Donlavey Good pairing It sponsor works out Olds Sunoco 94 Sterling Mart InMarlin Billy Hagan Steve Loyd Driver should get first victory in '90 98 Butch MillerRick Mast Travis Carter A match made in Detroit Chevrolet Travis Carter Chevy Banquet Foods -11 Jarrett Is hired by Edwards Schrader Tames Wild Daytona Winds for the twin 125-mile qualifying races Thursday Darrell Waltrip hit 195393 to give Chevy a sweep of the top three speeds The time-trial outcome regrouped the top three finishers of last year's Daytona 500 Waltrip Schrader and Earnhardt Qualifying in positions four through seven in the 194-mph range were Ford drivers Bill Elliott Mark Martin Neil Bonnett and Geoff Bodine Olds drivers Phil Parsons Sterling Marlin and Rick Wilson completed the top 10 Richard Petty who has seven Daytona 500 victories among his record 200 triumphs quali- Continued From Page ID Schrader's potential purse for the 500 is near $500000 "The car got wobbly in Turn 3 because of the strong wind coming across the track" Schrader said "I lifted off the accelerator just a little bit" Despite his caution Schrader rolled to the line at the 25-mile track with a considerable cushion over Dale Earnhardt who took the only other spot available in the 500 Saturday at 195767 Only the top two positions are locked in with the rest of the speeds determining lineups fled his Pontiac 1 1 th at 193623 mph Defending Winston Cup champion Rusty Wallace and his Pontiac team continued to struggle at Daytona managing a speed of 190267 mph 34th fastest The drivers placing three through 12 virtually assured themselves spots in the 500 even if they should experience trouble in the qualifying races Thursday The top 14 finishers in the 125s get positions three through 30 in the storied 500-miler The remaining 10 slots go to drivers with the top qualifying times who don't get in via the Thursday races it hunder: 'I'm Living A Movie' Days i''' I i--1) 'i --31zit' 11f 116ft(el'' '''''-'-74 '-'''''''-'''''44' Nk: I 7- ''tretiil N) 1 1 it-' '7 At Ak' 7: '7? 1 '-'tl 3:::: 3 i If" 0 $: 4 bit I 1 i 11 'k ''i'vitl'' -if 1 ti 81A "'''eh it :::1 4:: oI: -i i fib 4 4 r' Ilti si i li fl 4 tt -4k- 4 413 r' 4 i 'i -i': "4 '1' 'V 4 -4 V' Ill lc -57 i 2: 1 1 ''114t 4 "-i 'ii :41::: fil' ''''if l'4itttt 4- '1 -1stt MEREDITH HERDENStaff a Mr Gadget in his home in Lincoln County His Rob Moroso's an abstract painter a chef and audiovisual toys require five remote controls "It's not why can I do it? I don't need to figure that out It's why can't everybody else do it?" Maybe it's because the average person can't last 500 miles in searing heat or stifling humidity Maybe the average person can't concentrate that long Maybe the average person can't drive nearly 200 mph and still keep the car on the ground 'Great Drivers Are Great Fast' Moroso knows race cars "I was leading at Charlotte (in a Grand National race) by three-quarters of a straightaway" he recalled "All of a sudden I thought 'Man it's hot in here My neck hurts I'm thirsty' And you're thinking 'How many laps left? This is ridiculous I'm going around and around and around' "Five minutes later I'm running side by side with Rusty And I wasn't tired it wasn't hot in there and I was driving my heart out" Two of Moroso's victories were at Charlotte Motor Speedway last year Prize money from those races represents nearly a third of his $346849 in Grand National winnings Those races in May and October both Saturday preludes to the major Winston Cup races in Charlotte had a history of domination by drivers in the larger circuit That's one reason 'observers think Moroso is destined for something larger "When you see somebody like this come along it strengthens my theory that great drivers are great fast" Wheeler said "He could be one of the greatest drivers we've ever had" Jack Ingram has won more races 31 than anyone on the Grand National circuit He is 53 and has been driving race cars longer than Moroso has been alive He finished fifth behind Moroso in the 1989 Grand National points standings Ingram is another who thinks Moroso could win a race this year "One thing he's got that very few people have he's aggressive" Ingram said "If he gets that smoothed out he'll definitely be at the top" Until then Moroso will learn hard lessons technically and tactically But he learns quickly "It's just like it was stamped into a computer" Baker said "When you tell him his mistake he'll go right out and correct it" 'There Has To Be A Rainbow' He has control of his race car and his emotions But he can't control the other drivers In their hands will be where Moroso's biggest lessons are learned "I was a new kid on the block" Wallace said "I started winning and then I raced hard against some of the older guys I got some heat for that "They'll start out loving him then hating him then loving him again When that happens he'll be there" Being there and getting there are two different things No question events have happened awfully fast for "Weeks go by in 10 minutes it seems" he said It has all looked so easy At every level he has gone straight up and fast No 1 with a bullet But this is the biggest of the big time in stock car racing And there's another direction drivers can go Moroso does not look in that direction In the midst of a rain shower the sun peeks out Moroso scans the sky through the spattered windshield of his van "Where's the rainbow?" he asks "There has to be a rainbow" Continued From Page ID tt: Today he's neither Just young and talked about j-- "I'm living a movie" he says 1 Ile won NASCAR's Busch Grand National series Oast year winning four races and regularly beating some of the sport's heavyweights Darrell Waltrip Dale Earnhardt Rusty Wallace He has a three-race winning streak at Charlotte Motor Speedway winning both major Grand National races there in 1989 But those are shorter races in smaller cars Can he stand up to 500 miles in the July heat of a Talladega sun? Can he swap paint with Earnhardt on the final i lap? Can he outrun Wallace to the wire? "I think we're going to see a lot of Rob" Wallace i said "He might win a race his first year" That would be a trick worth talking about It's 1 something Wallace didn't do It took him three full 1 years to win a Winston Cup race Same for Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough i i The closest thing to a full-blown phenom NASCAR 1 has seen in the past 10 years was Earnhardt He got Ihis first win in 1979 his second full year on the circuit But Earnhardt did not arrive with as many trumpets from inside stock car racing as Moroso 3 'lie Could Be The Guy' "Rob appears that as he matures he could be the guy we're looking for" Wheeler said "That guy will transcend stock car racing" At the moment Moroso just wants to transcend his 1 compact disc player "Two things I don't go anywhere without" Moroso says "Music and a radar detector" Without the radar detector he's had a couple of speeding tickets in recent months As Busch Grand National champion he gets the free use of a van decked out from hood to tail pipe in the sponsor's logo It looks like a giant beer can on wheels That doesn't faze Moroso The van has all the comforts of home plush upholstery television VCR and killer stereo Tears For Fears is loaded in Ithe CD Momso lives in Lincoln County not many miles from Terrell His house resembles a modem sculpture a series of rectangles staggered and stacked I together He's been living there since September just 1 after Hurricane Hugo 1 on an end table in the living room are five remote controls one for the television one for the VCR i one for the stereo one for the compact disc player and one with an antenna that controls them all 1 On a shelf above the fireplace are stacks of CDs He Iloves music and his tastes are eclectic from Oingo Boingo to Roy Orbison from Pink Floyd to Cowboy 1 junkies The kitchen is open and airy the site of many Rob Moroso culinary creations He has a passion for I cooking and can prepare everything in a full-course meal from soup to sauce to dessert "A lot of people say they can't cook" he said "But 1 they don't know if they haven't tried" I The back side of the house has three huge picture 1 windows They overlook a sprawling deck and a wooded downhill view of the lake On the dock are two fishing poles He doesn't have 'a boat yet He's bringing a bass boat back from i Daytona in exchange for some promotional appearf ances 1 Moroso is into fitness having shed 20 pounds since the end of last season He lifts weights three days a f- week and rides a stationary bicycle every day He has 4iven up beer for which he once had a fondness His life seems terribly in order A homeowner 'Taking care of his body Being domestic 1 pany in 1968 the same year Rob was born A lot of that money went toward Rob's racing education Today Dick Moroso is the team owner He has been the financial and motivational influence for his son "Whenever he tells me to do something it's always right" Rob said "Sometimes I question it in my mind But he's always right He'd never tell me to do something stupid "He's the decider But he flatters me with the stuff he asks me about He's the car owner That's one reason he has the last say But he's my father too I'm not a teenager any more I don't legally have any reason to listen to him He's always right Why not listen to him?" Dick and Rob drove around the track one day at NC Motor Speedway in Rockingham students of Baker Rob drove a Daytona Dash car while Dad was behind the wheel of a larger Winston Cup car Through each turn each straightway Dick was on Rob's tail pipe pushing his son a little farther "When I saw that I knew Rob wasn't just another rich kid" said Baker a stock car legend of the 1950s "I knew he had talent "He's a scientific driver He reminds me a lot of Fireball Roberts He's not an Earnhardt a gung-ho driver who sticks his nose right in (Moroso) waits for the right moment Everything is nice smooth and consistent" Moroso can drive That much is obvious He just can't explain how "Learning how to drive a race car and learning how to race a race car is different" he said "As far as technical things in driving a race car which anybody could do sure I could tell you how to shift gears better "But no I couldn't tell you how to feel the race car and interpret into words I have to be an interpreter between a machine and a person 'I Guess I'm Still A Kid' But he has not lost his wide-eyed wonder "I'm still having fun" he says "So I guess I'm still a kid "I don't ever feel grown up Not really What's the point? I hope I never feel more grown up than I do now" Auto racing is all about a curious blend of the daring of youth and wisdom of age you need both at 175 mph on a tight turn Moroso apparently has both A kid and a grown-up alternately doing battle to see which will emerge at any given time One moment he discusses sponsors obligations appearances and responsibility The next instant he mentions his street car It's a steel-blue Monte Carlo sitting idle behind the race team's Charlotte shop Its hood is raised and nothing is underneath He blew the engine "How do you think I did it?" he says Fast cars Fast life He doesn't quite know how it got to this point "Brain surgeons want my autograph" Moroso said "I don't know why I should want theirs They went to school 15 years to do what they do 1 didn't" He graduated from high school in Connecticut and did not attend college except for a couple of classes at Charlotte's Central Piedmont Community College He never finished those The Natural's Dad Is 'Always Right' The only formal racing training Moroso has is the Buck Baker Driving School Otherwise he is a natural He grew up in Madison Conn the well-off son of a business owner Dick Moroso His father a former drag racer started a racing performance parts corn 1.