The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 17

ihe 'Marione (Observer 1 Monday June 10 1991 SECTION '''''''s4' i i Allison gets victory udd gets angry 0 II irKM Ron Green 11 Top finishers 1 Tv inommln Technology Allison's Ford Pandemonium confusion and anger washed over the garage area for many except for Allison and his Robert Yates Racing team of Charlotte in the ensuing minutes Especially irate were Rudd crew chief Waddell Wilson and other members of the Hendrick Motorsports team of Harrisburg On Lap 72 Mark Martin spun as he put his Ford into the lead in front of Tommy Kendall's Pontiac in Turn 7 and contact occurred That incident allowed Allison and Rudd to sweep by and set up the calamitous conclusion NASCAR President Bill France Jr and other officials went into a trailer serving as an office to review their call on the AllisonRudd events Wilson followed By TOM HIGGINS Staff Writer SONOMA Calif In the most controversial bizarre finish to a NASCAR Winston Cup race in years perhaps ever Davey Allison emerged the winner Sunday of the Banquet Foods 300 at Sears Point International Raceway Ricky Rudd took the white flag signifying the last lap as the leader on the 252-mile I 1-turn course and returned to the line in front But instead of getting the expected checkered flag he saw the black flag as officials had ordered his Chevrolet to take a stop-and-go penalty for a collision that spun leader Allison at the end of the 73rd of 74 laps The checkered flag then was waved over "Don't take this race away from us Billy" Wilson said his voice charged with emotion "If you do you'll have the world come down on you You didn't do anything about the 42 and 6 cars (Kendall's and Martin's) You told all of them in the drivers' meeting that on the last lap they were on their own" Wilson was asked to shut the door and leave the area "If they take this race from us it's the rottenest thing I've ever seen from NASCAR in my life and I've been racing since 1961" Wilson said "You've got three laps to recognize a black flag" "It was a racing accident" Rudd said "Just hard racing I was on the brakes and my car was Please see Finepage 3C 1 Davey Allison Ford 2 Ricky Rudd Chevrolet 3 Rusty Wallace Pontiac 4 Ernie Irvan Chevy 5 Ken Schrader Chevy 6 Terry labonte Olds 7 Dale Earnhardt Chevy 8 Geoff Bodine Ford 9 Mark Martin Ford 10 Michael Waltrip Pontiac driving this golfer batty Blame it on the rain 1117 If Chkago Llit 40 111r 0 pi 4e4)A oip444 414w one win 11kS from title '94 t) 00k 4 A 6lifkbl 4 VA 04 'V 47 Bulls on the brink after pounding LA 4s Observer News Services INGLEWOOD Calif At first it had the makings of a classic But these NBA Finals are quickly turning into the coronation for Chicago and Michael Jordan Jordan playing with a bruised toe led the Bulls to a 97-82 victory Sunday night and a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals Jordan led Chicago with 28 points the 16th consecutive time he's led his team in scoring He also had 13 assists his third game in double figures in the Finals The Bulls are one victory away from the first NBA championship in their 25-year history Chicago plays Wednesday night at Los Angeles As good as Jordan was he limped slightly throughout the first half but the pain wasn't severe enough to stop him from scoring 16 points no heroics were necessary this time because the Bulls were in command for the entire second half Chicago's defense thor- NBA playoffs oughly frustrated the Magic Johnson was like FINALS a conductor with (Best-of-seven) Sunday's result no orchestra to Chicago Laken 82 work with Byron (Bulls lead series 3-1) Scott bothered Wednesday's game with a shoulder Chicago at LA Lakers (NBC)9 pm injury took four Friday's game shots Sam Per- Lekers at Chicago (NBC)-9 pm kins (one for 15) June le was shut down 'LA takers at Chicago (NBC)7 pm James Worthy -if necessary (six for 16) did not play the final 11 minutes after aggravating his ankle injury Viade Divac scored 27 points his career high as a pro and Johnson had 22 and 11 assists But it wasn't enough The Lakers hit 293 of their shots in the second and third quarters Meanwhile six Bulls reached double figures as they continued to prove there is much more to their team than Jordan Here's an example The Lakers were making a run and pulled to 78-71 with six minutes 54 seconds remaining That was the closest Los Angeles had been since the first quarter But the Bulls called timeout and re-established control And Jordan wasn't even involved John Paxson made a jump shot and Scottie Pippen followed with a breakaway dunk putting the Bulls ahead by II points again Jordan showed the only obvious sign of pain in his bruised right toe when he limped after dunking the ball while being fouled by Perkins But Jordan converted the free throw giving Chicago a 22-13 advantage with 5: 1 0 left in the quarter The Bulls had just five turnovers in the game Chicago is 14-2 in the playoffs If the Bulls win Wednesday night they will match Detroit for the best record in the playoffs If Chicago can win its third consecutive game at the Forum Wednesday it will also match the Pistons' feat last year of winning the title by capturing three straight on the opponents home floor 1 A "news release" arrived on this desk recently telling of a solution you can buy for washing golf balls that if the release is to be believed creates miracles out there on the links where many a prayer is lifted for one It said washing balls with this "proprietary formulation of friction-reducing wash compounds" would add 20 to 35 yards to my drives and improve my score "to the degree that duffers can play golf like pros" It said if you wash the dimples only (how do you do that?) it will reduce slicing and hooking Golf has always been thickly populated with nuts and fertile ground for nutty products and this one has harebrained-hall-offame potential But you never know It might work Other curious things are working and they are making shots go farther and straighter Better golf through chemistry is what we have Chemistry and technology Steel shafts are being replaced by things with Star Wars names like boron and graphite Woods are being replaced by metal heads but of course are still called woods These metal heads as well as the irons have weight distributed around the edges so that when you hit one out on the toe of the club or just graze the top of the ball either of which should produce something really ugly it'll still go and it'll look like a good one And of course we have golf balls to go along with that balls that have dimples designed to straighten out the black-hearted hook or the see-ya slice Armed with all of this rocketry the touring pros treat us weekly to 63s and 64s sometimes 62s soon to be 50-somethings In the third round of the recent Kemper Open none of the six leaders made a bogey To paraphrase the late Bobby Jones' assessment of Jack Nicklaus they play a game with which I'm not familiar And it's not just the touring players Club pros and amateurs are doing a lot of it They hit the ball amazing distances You hear it on TV "Well Greg has 210 yards to the pin He'll go with an 8-iron" Or "Hal has 230 to the front of the green He'll probably use a 4-iron" That 230 is a pretty darn good drive for most of us Bobby Wadkins averaged 2664 yards off the tee last year would give my boron-graphite metal-headed driver and a dozen chemically enhanced maniacal genius-designed golf balls to hit one 2664 But Wadkins was 50th on the Tour in average driving distance Tom Purtzer led with 2796 The shortest Mike Reid averaged close to 260 (One wonders if just maybe they might be secretly using a diabolically mixed ball wash) The people who test equipment for the US Golf Association insist there's been no appreciable increase in how far the ball flies in the past 20 years It's true there are more good players today They have their own teaching pros and psychologists But the equipment has to play a big role in this reduced scoring and added distance (That or you know the ball wash) It's becoming necessary because a lot of the courses being built nowadays are so difficult you need high-tech help and a couple of Sherpas to get around them Mounds are big in the golf course business today These courses have more lumps than a mattress in a cheap motel Greens are shaped like pieces from a jigsaw puzzle and where we once had slopes there are now ledges It's like putting a mesa The only things that look natural on these courses are the snakes The typical new layout looks like one of those incomprehensible modern art paintings Dare to miss a green just a fraction with your approach shot and the course designer takes it personally You're hanging from the face of a cliff trying to hit a shot out of a thick stand of sugar cane (It's only a guess of course but I think that's what happened to Jimmy Hoffa Ile yanked an 8-iron shot went after it and has never been heard from Poor devil probably thought the game was supposed to be fun) All of this makes me so mad I think I'll give up the game Until tomorrow Asociated-NI-'s'i Jim Courier slams a backhand during his five-set in Paris Agassi dominated the match early but after victory over Andre Agassi in the French Open Sunday two rain delays Courier took control Courier steals flash from Agassi "That was just spontaneous I didn't know what to do" said Courier 20 The victory moved to Courier from No 9 to No 4 in the computer rankings and he's now the top-ranked American in the world Agassi dropped From fourth to fifth Agassi won the first set in 39 minutes The second set started the same way But when the rain fell Agassi looked worried lie walked off the court with his head down The match was never the same Agassi: "I really don't know what happened" Courier: "I just tried to keep putting the ball in play and keep making Andre hit more shots It seemed like if I did that I eventually won the points Nothing fancy" By DIANE PUCIN Knight-Ridder Newspapers PARIS This loss pierced Andre Agassi's carefully crafted image It made the rock-star hair and flamboyant clothes look like cheap props It brought tears to his eyes and made him voice that thing he dislikes so much self-doubt Agassi began Sunday's French Open championship final a flashy tennis player the master of his opponent He ended it by wrecking on the modest skills of Jim Courier who can perform not one tennis skill as well as Agassi And Courier won 3-6 6-4 2-6 6-1 6-4 It was Agassi's third loss to an underdog in a Grand Slam final in the past year He lost to Andres Gomez in the French Open final last year and to Pete Sampras at the US Open This time the underdog wore a baseball cap and after losing two of the first three sets he seemed to gain confidence with each point "What happened?" Agassi was heard to say afterward The simple answer was "rain" In the first set Agassi was magnificent He led 3-1 in the second set when rain interrupted the match "That rain didn't hell)" Agassi said "I seemed to have some momentum up to that point" Courier played with poise power and a little luck The No 9 seed took control with heady aggressive play in fifth set while Agassi unraveled After his match-winning point an ace up the middle that left Agassi with tears in his eyes Courier lay down on his back in the red clay Barger brought love great memories to Hickory High 1001 7m' ------7 1 a through '81 and its athletic director from 1967 through '75 And although officially retired he remained the grandpappy of Tornadoes athletics That was his life Friends say he loved coaching teaching and nourishing the Hickory athletic program as it grew into one of the state's best With Barger almost always spotted squatting on the sidelines Hickory went 237-108-5 in his 32 football seasons Many of those victories came just down the street at Lenoir-Rhyne's College Field because the Tornadoes did not have an on-campus stadium Barger always wanted his athletes to play on their own field In 1983 a new stadium was built on campus and it was named Frank Barger Stadium on Sept 19 1986 "I think that shows what people think of him" said St Stephens High coach Harry Frye who met Barger 30 years ago when Frye began his career at Hickory's College Park Middle School "A lot of people remember him as a football coach but his contribution was really to the total program of high school athletics in the state" To son Ray now football coach at West Wilkes High and one of his father's former players Barger was one of a kind "We're prejudiced" Ray said "but we certainly don't think there'll be another one like him" By CHRIS HOBBS Start Writer The stadium that rests on a hill behind his beloved I lickory High carries Frank Barger's name but former players and fellow coaches say that honor is only a small part of what he meant to high school athletics "He was high school football forever and ever (in Hickory)" said Mark Huggins the Tornadoes' quarterback in 1980 and '81 Barger 69 died Friday after a period of declining health His funeral is today at 11 am at St Andrews Lutheran Church 629 8th Ave Northeast Hickory Barger was Hickory's football coach from 1953 s34 Barger SCOREBOARD Southern League American League New York 6 Texas 4 Minnesota 9 Cleveland 2 Chicago 8 Kansas City 2 California 7 Detroit 3 Seattle 6 Milwaukee 1 Oakland 8 Boston 0 Toronto 3 Baltimore 2 National League Los Angeles 6 Chicago 3 Cincinnati 6 Philadelphia 3 San Diego 5 Pittsburgh 3 Atlanta 8 Montreal 6 San Francisco 3 St Louis 2 Houston 1 New York 0 Standings Page 4C Di Maggio's streak 25: On this date in 1941 Joe Di Maggio got his only hit in five at-bats on a hard bouncer that handcuffed Chicago third baseman Dario lodigiani The official scorer ruled it too hot to handle and the streak went to 25 as the Yankees won 8-3 INSIDE Briefs 2C Golf 3C Baseball 4C NBA 5C WLAF 6C Charlotte 3 Carolina 1 Monarchs rule: The London Monarchs defeat the Barcelona Dragons 21-0 to win the World Bowl the first WLAF championship gamePage 6C South Atlantic League Gastonia 6 Greensboro 5 Standings Page 80 a.