The Roanoke Times from Roanoke, Virginia • 27

1 AP Dale Jarrett (32) barely beats Dick Trickle to the finish line with Harry Gant (7) a close third i A 1 i i 600 I A By JOSEPH SIANO THE NEW YORK TIMES By RANDY KING SPORTSWRITER fastest ever think that record of 20 yearswithout a repeat winner is old ittipaldi said is time for someone to do it He will start the 200 lap race as one of the favorites along with Un ser Jr and Penske Racing teammate Rick Mears a three time winner who will start in the middle of the frnnt rnu? Kfporc urhn lact wnn in 1988 will be making his 10th front row start an Indy record Outside on the first of the 11 three car rows will be Arie Luyen dyk one of 10 drivers in the race to average more than 220 mph in their four lap 10 mile qualification runs Luyendyk from the Netherlands has never won an Indy car race Bobby Rahal the 1986 winner and Mario Andretti the 1969 champ flank 27 year old Michael Andretti son in row two Right behind are young Unser four time winner AJ oytand 1985 winner Danny Sullivan in the third Penske car oyt 55 will become the oldest led all 105 miles the 600 appears to be a more wide open affair The best bets to knock off Earn hardt start on the front row Ken Schrader (Chevrolet) and Mark Martin (ord) Schrader who was second to Earnhardt in The Winston and won the 600 pole with a sizzling lap of 1 73963 mph said he thrown in the towel can beat he said we do or not is another story He may beat us all like he did last Sunday top 10 teams are all so close Mark Martin can go out there and make us all look bad We can do it Rusty Wallace can do it a bunch of that can do it that to happen they would have to be 100 percent and the rest 90 percent Remember this is not a 20 lap run 400 But Schrader said it will be tough to derail the Earnhardt Ex press team gets the chassis good all the time he has good engines and Dale drives the hell out of the Schrader said not a lot of secrets there what the rest of us teams are trying to Other top threats in the field include Davey Allison (starting sixth) Bill Elliott (seventh) Wallace (ninth) Geoff Bodine (13th) Dick Trickle (14th) Darrell Waltrip (16th) and Morgan Shepherd (24th) Waltrip will be shooting for a record third consecutive 600 victo ry He has won the 600 a record five times The race takes the green flag in front of an expected crowd of 150000 to 160000 fans at 1 pm i turned into an absolute work aholic while working at CMS Humpy made it very difficult for me to leave this place learned so much from him He was my mentor the master of PR a brilliant man The man is a ings in 10 starts this year go out and do it and pretty satisfying the way the compe tition Earnhardt said Despite a poor qualifying effort Chevrolet Lumina will start 12th in the 42 car field the three time national champion says his car has what it takes to win longest race messed up qualifying I think the driver drove a little hard into turn Earnhardt said got the right engine combination and the car is ready to race now real consistent and I think what going to take to win consistency the chassis and crew on pit road If we can hold it all together have a good Over the years the 600 mile race been kind to Earnhardt He has won the grueling race only once in 14 career starts It was 15 mile tri oval that cost Earnhardt the title in his battle with Rusty Wallace last season Earnhardt suffered engine woes in both races finishing 38th in the 600 and 42nd in the October 500 mile event last year luck been that good Earnhardt said you compare differ ent years pumped up this year confidence level is real ly high And we want to win We like finishing Unlike The Winston in which Earnhardt started on the pole and CONCORD NC Dale Jar rett led for one lap Saturday at Char lotte Motor Speedway but he picked the right lap to lead i Jarrett slipped under Dick Trickle in the fourth turn of the final lap and beat him to the finish line by 3 feet to win the Champion 300 NASCAR Busch Grand National race The tight finish marked the third time in less than a week that a race at the speedway has been decid ed by less than a car length Trickle who beat Rob Moroso by 6 inches in Winston Open found himself on the wrong end this time After leading 114 of the first 199 laps Pontiac pushed high in turn four allowing Jarrett room to move underneath and score his fourth career Grand National victory the end I just kept working and working on Dick hoping to find somewhere to beat Jarrett said noticed he was washing up the track a little in turns three and four on the last lap he got a little loose and left me a slight open lison in seventh It was a bad day for Chuck Bown and his Hensley Racing team from Ridgeway Va Pontiac cut a tire 1 5 laps into the race lost a lap in the pits and finished 17th Hensley who entered the day 54 points behind first place Bown in the GN title race cut his deficit to 20 Jarrett earned $25475 for his second GN victory at Charlotte The 32 year old driver from Conover NC also won the race in 1988 Dale Earnhardt the odds on fa vorite in Coca Cola 600 Winston Cup event finished eighth On lap 3 1 Earnhardt tapped Darrell Waltrip sideways forcing Waltrip to spin Chevrolet later blew an engine and finished 29th INDIANAPOLIS No matter who runs up front and who brings up the rear today each of the 33 drivers in the Indianapolis 500 will pursue a common opponent Everyone as they say here will be chasing the race track inding the precise adjust ments that provide the most straightaway speed and best handling in the four turns on the mile oval can seem like an eternal quest A passing cloud a sudden wind shift or the turbulent air from another car can literally be very unsettling at 220 mph The contemporary Indy car driver has computers that tell him exactly what the sus pension and engine are doing at any point on the track But the gadgetry is no sub stitute for his physical sensitivi ty to the every twitch and the mental dexterity to be aware of all going on around him while driving faster than 200 mph the driver drive the car it matter what the numbers said Rick Mears the master of this track for the last decade Derrick Walker the gener al manager of the Porsche team has perhaps the best computer monitoring system in Indy car racing But as even he said seat of the pants is still the best anatomical imag ery is based on reality absolutely strapped into that said Bobby Rahal the 1986 winner here wearing that car And so your back might be tell ing you something your fanny your hands getting all of these feelings through your en tire body which is commonly reduced to of the Just as Ted vi sion was sharp enough for him to tell exactly which part of the ball his bat hit the acuity of spine has inspired stories Emerson ittipaldi teammate remembers when during preseason testing at the speedway he pulled into the pits and was asked by Nigel Bennett the chassis de signer if he had noticed a vibra tion from the back end when he entered a turn ittipaldi But when he went back out sure enough there it was Mears had felt it on his car and told Bennett Walker provided an insight into what separates Mears a three time winner and five time pole sitter here from the driv ers in the back of the pack the engineer and making adjustments on the car and feel them per sonally your main link is through that Walker said umbilical cord if you like is your link to the car a driver communi cate with you concentrat ing too much on driving the car through the turns and his sub conscious is not picking up the Mears said: think a big part of it Being able to run through the corner and be aware of going on all around During the final Indy 500 practice run Thursday John Andretti one of two drivers came in and shared in make it by the last segment So formation with Tim Wardrop then when we have to go rac the track engineer for his car ing have our best Rahal and teammate Al Unser Jr became victims of the mercurial speedway earlier this month A day before the start of time trials to determine starting positions for race Un ser ran a lap at more than 228 mph with Rahal not far behind at 225 known driver to start the race when he makes his record 33rd consecu tive Indy appearance He has won an Indy car race since 1981 The first nine drivers all have something in common besides a le gitimate chance to win: Their cars all have Chevrolet Indy V8 engine like the ones that powered Mears and ittipaldi the last two years Rahal got Chevrolet power for the first time this year and joined Unser Jr as a teammate when his former team Kraco combined with Galles Racing difference is really amaz 1 Rahal said power smoothness and durability are al there and proven If only one Chevy finishes the race it will win it it more of them go the full 500 miles going to be one heck of a The forecast for race: Cloudy in the morning and partly cloudy in the afternoon with hight'U temperatures in the mid 70s There1 is less than a 30 percent chance of rain ing I took my car down low and luckily it Trickle said his Pontiac had handling problems in the final 15 miles of the 300 mile run was just trying to keep on the Trickle said got in the last comer over there and the car was way loose It bobbled up the track Something just took the car up had to lift on the gas to keep it from getting away from me Jar rett got an opening and took advan tage Maybe with one more lap I could have beaten him Jarrett could tell he had me at the finish just like I had Moroso last Sunday Man I do so good for 199 laps to do so bad on the last Harry Gant finished third after his Ed Whitaker team based in Abingdon Va worked all night to fix his Oldsmobile after a crash in practice riday Sterling Marlin and Virginian Tommy Ellis completed the top five Jimmy Hensley of Horsepas ture Va finished behind Davey Al Indy ROM PAGE B1 checkered flag and first $1 million prize beckoned less than two laps away on the history rich 2Vi mile oval? Certainly not the 400000 dr so spectators on hand at the Indianapo lis Motor Speedway nor the millions in an international audi ence watching on television Unser a second generation Iri dy car star following in the footsteps of father Al a four time winner and uncle Bobby a three time champi on got the nose of his missile like racer just ahead of ittipaldi as the two dived into turn two ittipaldi a two time ormula One champion who took up Indy cars as a second career was jammed down on the track apron looking for some way to get around slower traf fic ahead He nudged up Unser bore Rick Mast of Rockbridge Baths Va also lost an engine and finished 32nd Jarrett averaged 132337 mph Eight cautions slowed the pace for 29 laps LUGNUTS: GN director Robert Black announced Saturday that drivers Tommy Ellis and LD Ottin ger have been fined $500 and placed on probation of the remainder of the season for their parts in an incident last week at Hickory (NC) Speed way Ellis and Ottinger wrecked each other on the lap then exchanged heated words on pit road Mike Beam said he will resign as crew chief for Bill ord team at the end of the season perhaps earlier Beam will join forces with a new Winston Cup team being formed by Charlotte businessman Sam McMahon Barry Dodson current crew Chief for Rusty Wallace figures to head the new operation with Jarrett expected to be the driver ROM PAGE B1 Winston alreadv has racked ur four victories and $793600 in eam wanted to take off on Cotter says sent out a packet of grass seed that included a bill for Earnhardt for where he had run through the front stretch grass sent out a crushed Coors beer can a crumpled Levi Garrett chew ing tobacco pouch and a crushed Goodwrench brake pad depicting all three sponsors I sent out a yellow piece of metal which actually came off car of the three drivers were too pleased about it had done this on my own but when Humpy heard about it I knew where I stood He said to keep mail ing the stuff out and that take the Earnhardt shrugs off the inci dent as simply or the all his controversial un conventional ideas Wheeler has a charitable side young driver Brett Bodine contends has always tried to help and steer me in the right direc Bodine says helps the young driver breaking into the sport He helped me get into Winston Cup racing He promoted me I really believe he is the one who helped me get in Hoss car helped me get in Ju nior car and helped start my career still remember when I was driving the double zero car on the Grand National circuit Humpy kept telling me I needed more expo sure before the Charlotte race he told me to paint my car Day Glo orange He said that would grab at tention what? He was right Just look at all the Day Glo colors you see out here now He has tremen dous vision tremendous Master mentor It was early in 1 989 when Cotter walked into office to an nounce his resignation as public re lations director Charlotte Motor Speedway was the toughest thing Trickle loses GN race the same way he won Winston Open Two days later Rahal took his qualification run with the same setup and ran 222 mph i Unser ran a week later again with the same setup and his speed dropped to 220 Rahal blaming extra hu midity in the air for slowing him sounded like a batter 7 whose drive was caught on the warning track learn very quickly all a Rahal said Which makes planning race day strategy pretty much useless start out the race and I see where the car is said Mears a driver famed for his doggedness in 500 mile races i He divides the race into segments and experiments with small changes in the car after each one to see what works best that day I get through all those segments and Mears said what trying to do is experimenting a little bit in the early stages to get my car to the absolute best I can Humpy ROM PAGE B8 I believe a lot of subconscious audience participation in stock car racing because every body can drive a car and the car they drive looks something like Dale Lumina I think they transfer themselves subconsciously info that If Wheeler looks at prerace tick et sales figures on his computer and sees the numbers are lagging he or ders his troops into his office They leave the room until a solution is found said you force creativity is not Wheeler says can You just sit here and think of an idea that will really blos som People who are not dreamers and thinkers work for Wheeler very long Besides the boss has a violent temper terrible to work for abso lutely terrible I put a lot of pressure on Wheeler says rip the phone out of the wall and hurl it across the sayS Joe Whitlock who worked as the public relations director from the next morning come by in the boat and say go is intense impa tient But all along forward thihking face it a boon to stock car The respect Stock car main players the drivers necessarily agree with all of tactics but they never discount his value to the sport in the racing business and in show Petty says keeps things stirred up He does some crazy stuff Sometimes we see eye to eye but whether you like him or not he gets the job done a promoter who comes up with a lot of off the wall stuff that works Some of the stuff ever done in my life Asking my work but he sure leave any wife to marry was the second tough stone est says Cotter who now owns his own stock car racine nuhlic VUV ut uiu puuuvtijr uvpcui ment promotions came before tne iciaiwns min in vnunuuc 1988 running oi Ine Winston Cotter trying to capitalize on thecontroversial finish of the previ ous race sent out a series of mailings Earnhardt Bill Elliott and Geoff Bodine had been in volved in a wild finish in 1 987 so we Andretti 27 the nephew of Mario Andretti spoke over a radio in his helmet and told Wardrop the car felt in the middle of the turns? meaning he sure what it wanted to do In response to input his crew fiddled with just a few of the dozens of adjust ments that can be made to the suspension and wings By the time they were done An dretti had the eighth fastest lap speed 217733 mph Mears was fastest at 222750 The slightest change in any one of these adjustments is im mediately noticeable running 222 mph you can tell the difference between 2220 and Ra hal said And unless an Indy car is set up just right the driver will watch helplessly as his competi tors pull away The days when a driver could carry a poor han dling car tossing the back end out as he wrestled it through the turns are long gone a speedway you have to make the car carry Mears said carry the car all day for 500 miles If you can physically see a car slid ing around the in big The reason drivers spend all month running lap after lap of practice here is because slight weather changes drastically af fect a handling If the day has been overcast and the sun suddenly breaks through the track surface warms and becomes slicker A stiff breeze blowing across the four identical 90 degree turns gives each one its own personal ity So the drivers and teams need to know exactly what chas sis settings work best in each set of weather conditions Roanoke Times World News Sunday May 27 1 990 B9 i 1 down Wheels touched Unser spun hard into the concrete wall ittipal car wiggled once a second time then steadied and drove on Victory was I1: laps away under a yellow light for the Brazilian ittipaldi now trying to be come the first driver since Al Unser in 1970 71 to win back to back Indy SdlU VVC VUU1U 11UL UllcUlKC the way we race in those conditions You know going into the turn that the one coming out ahead will have an advantage You want that advan tage You have to have Unser who climbed from his disabled car and walked to the edge of the track to give his conqueror two thumbs up said racing two guys going into the turn trying to hold the same territory and only one comes out If we have the same chance go for it again If a racer you back ittipaldi will start at the front of this record setting 33 car field His four lap qualifying aver age of 225301 mph was the best in a lineup that averaged 217437 the Jarrett leads when it counts 1 1 Indy 500 is not your basic Sunday drive I PP111 ''I I I Xa85" 7 llOilii! 1.