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| in qualifying for Bobby... |
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| gotta love it... |
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| for Jeffie... |
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| for breast cancer. All collectibles proceeds to be donated... nice gesture! 100K$!! estimated |
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| sharp!!!... |
QUALIFYING:
This year, it all started Friday night on Speedvision, with the setting of qualifying order among those already in Saturday night's The Winston. To join this exalted group, you needed to be still active, a winning owner or driver this or last year, or a past Champion, or a past winner of a Points race, or winner of one of the last five WINSTONs. As well, there is one spot, the last, for the winner of the WINSTON OPEN, the race prior to THE WINSTON, open to all active drivers not covered above... More on that later.
Thus, first order of business was to set the qualifying order among the winners who were automatically in the race. This, as you'd expect, included a very familiar cast of characters: Gordon, the Labonte Boys, the Burton clan, Dale Jarrett, Earnhardt, Martin, Rusty Wallace, Mayfield, Hamilton, Andretti, Marlin, Rudd... and some a little more surprising - Geoffrey Bodine, Mrs. Waltrip's kids, Ernie Irvan, Kyle Petty, and Bill Elliott.
Format for this is two laps, a pit stop, and one more lap. There is NO SPEED LIMIT on the pit road speed! Think about that - there are only about half these guys that raced under those conditions. Pit lane limits have been in place since the 1992 season, prompted by the death of one of Elliott's crewmembers back then, when he was hit while changing a rear tire by an out-of-control car - Ricky Rudd's.
The qualifying runs were neat to watch. Other than Ricky spinning out, and hired tire-changer gun Joey Knuckles' grandstanding wreckin' DW's run, plus a tire-change problem on Jeff Burton's car, it was all very serene, altho pitroad entrances looked kinda hairy!
The key to winning this session was how quickly you got onto pit road, and got 'er whoa'd down for the pits. Bobby Labonte hit it perfectly on his run, early in the session, and no one else came close. Some were faster on the track, and in the pit, but Bobby's Banzai entrance did it for him and his team. Gordon was second, then Martin, Wallace, and Earnhardt, in the gorgeous retro-Wrangler Monte Carlo.
One thought that occurred to me - the pit lane limits are a damn GOOD IDEA, after watchin' these guys come borin' in! We'da lost a couple more crewmen, I'm sure, had NASCAR not acted seven years ago!
"Twin 25's"
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| track near you...some day... |
Before we proceed - saw the new Monte in pace car form... time to explore some leasing options!!
A couple less familiar faces were present - Boris Said in the Irvan-Simo 14 car, Stricklin in Junie's #90, and Andy Hillenberg.
Park and Skinner led off heat 1, with Spencer and David Green behind them. No incidents of note in this one, Skinner won fairly easily, with Spencer, Schrader, Brett Bodine, and Green in distant pursuit. Mike looked strong for Saturday!
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As in heat one, we had a bit of a runaway. This time it was "rookie" Tony Stewart, easily leading the field, followed by Dallenbach, Irwin, Lepage, and Little in top five. Rounding out the top ten were Mast, Nadeau, Craven, Pressley and Kenny Wallace. Stewart's effort was even more impressive, considering he'd bopped up to Indy, ran the Indy car, then got back here for this event! As with Skinner, Tony looked strong for Saturday, a repeat of Mike Waltrip's 1996 heroics was even talked about!
"THE OPEN"
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At the green, Skinner and Jones were side-by-side, with Spencer, Dallenbach, Schrader, Irwin, Brett Bodine, Kevin Lepage, David Green and Chad Little all two-by-two after them. Skinner jumped out in front, but, by the end of lap one, Stwerart and Dallenbach had put him third. A couple laps later, Skinner and Spencer had buried Wally, and Tony Stewart was pullin' away. Running order of top ten after ten was Stewart, Skinner, Spencer, Schrader, Irwin, Dallenbach, Bickle, Lepage, Bodine and Little.
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| about to Park... |
The green flew on lap again on lap 14. Skinner challenged Stewart, but no go, Tony was too strong. Two laps later, Spencer was by Skinner, as Mike began to lose a bit of ground. Lap 23 saw Tony comfortably out front over Spencer, with Skinner third, then Schrader, Irwin and Dallenbach.
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| up in concrete dust... |
The last half of the race was relatively uneventful. Stewart stretched his lead, winning by almost 5 seconds over second place Spencer. After a spirited battle - at least that was their claim tonite on IWC - Schrader took third over Johnny Benson. Park was fifth, Little sixth, then Irwin, Dallenbach and Kenny Wallace rounded out the top ten.
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| a glimpse of the future... |
"THE WINSTON"
So now we were ready for the Big Show - "THE WINSTON"... No, not yet, first we do the drivers intros. All the participants were paraded in white Camaros (a week's worth of production in GM's Quebec plant, I'll bet!) In my opinion, watching the awe of the kids accompanying their famous dads were the best part of this. Humpy put on a good show - floodlights, dry ice, what more could ya ask for??
Format for THE WINSTON is two thirty-lap segments, with a random number of the leaders inverting, then a final ten-lap dash fo the cash. All the cars were lined up in order of qualifying LeMans-style in the infield. Kinda wish an old-fashioned LeMans sprint were part of it, but the need for all the safety equipment - belts, helmets, and other paraphernalia, makes this no longer feasible.
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We had a small hiccup at Lap 7, as a light rain brought out the caution, but this lasted barely longer than the commercial break, and we were back to serious racin'. Note - laps under caution do not count in this final event.
By lap ten, Bobby Labonte had retaken first, then Gordon, Martin, Earnhardt, Marlin, Mike Waltrip, Rusty Wallace, Geoffrey Bodine, Elliott and Jarrett rounded out the top ten.
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| night was over... |
The race restarted with Labonte still out front, then Gordon, Martin, Earnhardt, Marlin, Bodine, Mike Waltrip, Wallace, Irvan and Elliott leading the field. The green flew, and we went to commercial.
Back from commercial to a damaged Miller Taurus. Turned out that the third caution had flown, necessitated by a major pile-up on the back straight! The wreck appeared to have primarily involved Irvan, Elliott, Wallace, Ward Burton, Martin, Marlin, Bobby Labonte, brother Terry, and Mike Waltrip.
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On lap 12, Earnhardt briefly took the lead, but a lap later, Gordon made a power move around DE on the outside, firmly re-establishing his lead. Jeff never relinquished this lead, and the main action became watchin' Marlin, who'd gone in for four tires at the yellow, keep bulling forward. By lap 18, he was third, and all over Dale's retro-Wrangler. Sterling got second on lap 21, and closed in on Gordon, but only got within a second or so.
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| in Heat One... |
So, to decide how many cars to invert, they bring out this thing called a "Plinko-board"(???). The CEO of RJR dropped a basketball into the top, and it wended its way thru a bunch of rows of pegs down to a row of randomly placed numbers from 3 to 12 on the bottom. (This is random?? They had something like this years ago at the Toronto Science Centre - you could use the results of large numbers of runs to construct a perfect bell curve showing most landed in the numbers in the middle of the row! Don't they got no mathematicians in No'th Klina???)
Anyhoo, six were inverted, so we lined up with Terry Labonte beside Geoffrey Bodine to lead off, then Earnhardt, Mayfield, Marlin, and Gordon. Labonte was strong, Geoffrey Bodine was less so. By lap five, the Powerteam Chevy had been booted back to sixth again, behind Terry Labonte, Earnhardt, Mayfield, Gordon and Marlin. Stewart, Mike Waltrip, Elliott and Darrell Waltrip rounded out the top ten. The next three or four laps saw a classic fight for the lead between Dale 'n Terry, and Stewart was up to sixth, and still chargin'.
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But no one had a thing for Gordon, who again took the segment, with Stewart and Labonte a distant second and third.
Now, after the 30-lap second segment, a yellow was shown to set up the final ten-lap dash. All the cars headed for the pits for tires. This musta presented a dilemma for the leaders - two for track position, or four for traction?? Stewart and Gordon took two, to maintain their positions, the rest of the leaders, including Labonte and Marlin, took four. This would prove crucial to the outcome...
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Behind this pair, things were equally hairy, as Gordon fought off the four-fresh-tired Earnhardt and Marlin. But up front, once ahead of Stewart, Labonte pulled out a one-second lead by lap nine, put 'er in cruise and came home for his $300K. Stewart, Gordon, Earnhardt, Mayfield, Bodine, Marlin, Mike Waltrip, Elliott, Andretti and Darrell Waltrip made up the rest of the eleven cars on the lead lap. Three more cars, Hamilton, Petty and Ward Burton rounded out the fourteen still running at the end of the night.
And so it ended - a long night of racin' and hype. Not bad, but given my druthers, I'd skip all the boomph, and get back to the Points Chase. A little more racin', a little less hype... but I do like all the colour schemes, and look forward, as a model builder, to the next flood of decals this will send our way. Just gotta track down some o' that fancy Gordon paint...
So, now we're back into the Points next Saturday night, as the Coca Cola 600 rolls at Lowe's Motor Speedway. This may again be a tape delay, as we're all heavily into rootin' for the Toronto Maple Leafs, as they fight the battle of the QEW with Buffalo, to advance to the Stanley Cup finals. But, ultimately I'll be watchin' the race from the ol' couch, so stay tuned!! Lowe's Motor Speedway again on a Saturday night!
See y'all there... From My
Couch!!
"Mr. NASCAR" |