$9.3-Million Man One to Beat in the $8-Million Daytona 500

By SHAV GLICK

Feb. 6, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — After all the hullabaloo over NASCAR’s 50th anniversary last year, what does the stock car racing organization do for an encore in 1999?

For starters, it opens the season on Daytona International Speedway’s 2.5-mile tri-oval, as usual, but with an $8-million race, the 41st Daytona 500, richest in history.

And it spotlights a $9.3-million Winston Cup champion, Jeff Gordon, who is bidding for a fourth championship.

And then there’s seven-time Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt, as defending champion in the Daytona 500 after his dramatic victory last year ended 20 years of frustration at the “World Center of Racing.”

As has been the situation since Gordon won his first championship at 24, the Winston Cup story line revolves around who can beat the dashing Chevrolet driver who got his start racing karts around his hometown of Vallejo, Calif.

His recent record indicates it won’t be easy.

Last year, Gordon won 13 races and had 26 top-five finishes. He has won two of the last four races here at Daytona, the Pepsi 400 last fall and the Daytona 500 in 1997. He won three of the last six Winston Cup races in ‘98, and has finished 20 consecutive races in the top 10.

All while being younger than any other of his challengers, much younger in fact.

Although at 27, he may finally be too old to still be called “Wonder Boy,” the name derisively given Gordon by Earnhardt a few years ago, he is still younger than last year’s rookie of the year, Kenny Irwin, and this year’s leading rookie candidate, Tony Stewart.

“Things have been going real well for us since we got here,” Gordon said Friday after taking his final practice laps before today’s front-row qualifying for next Sunday’s Daytona 500.

“We haven’t been able to match the Fords, but we were able to run some decent speeds. I’m pleased at the results.”

If practice times are any indication, the Ford of Rusty Wallace will be the one to beat when 55 cars take their two laps in today’s time trials. Wallace was the fastest in preseason tests at 193.129 mph and has been running consistently in the 193 bracket, topping out at 193.615 Friday.

Gordon’s fast lap was 193.245.

“If he can run those numbers tomorrow, he can have the pole,” Gordon said of Wallace. “We don’t come here necessarily to win the pole. We try to go as fast as we can and get in the top five or top 10. We come here to win the Daytona 500. We’ve proven several times the fastest car in qualifying doesn’t win the race or mean you’re going to have the best car when it comes to racing.”

Only seven times in 40 years, in fact, has the pole winner also won the 500--the last being Bill Elliott in 1987.

Wallace, who got the pole for Sunday’s Bud Shootout in a drawing, hopes to find the same success today on the track, then capitalize on it in the 500.

“Daytona has not been real courteous to me in the past, but of late it’s been getting better,” Wallace said. “Earnhardt finally got his last year and I’d like to get mine now.”

It took Earnhardt 20 years to win the biggest prize in stock car racing. This will be Wallace’s 17th attempt. His best finish was fifth last year.

Earnhardt, winless since last year’s 500, indicated that he and car owner Richard Childress were concentrating not so much on winning the 500 as winning his eighth championship.

“To start this season off on a winning note and get this team back into the feel of racing in the top five and racing for the championship is what I want to do,” Earnhardt said. “Over the years I’ve raced with Richard, there wasn’t many years we were out of the running for it. These last couple of years have been painful.”

Earnhardt finished fifth in 1997 and eighth last year. He won the last of his seven titles, a record he shares with Richard Petty, in 1994.

“Of course, watching John Elway win the Super Bowl made us think about [repeating as 500 winner], too. Cale [Yarborough], Richard [Petty] and Sterling [Marlin], I think, are the only guys who have done it. To be able to do that would be great.”

Marlin, driving a Chevrolet for Felix Sabates, edged Wallace out for the fastest in Friday’s practice with a lap at 193.995 mph.

“I think [practice time] will be pretty close to qualifying time,” he said. “The trick is to keep the car down on the ground for qualifying. This place is crazy. For four days of testing, all you do is work on qualifying for two laps. We haven’t run a single lap in race trim.

“The race pays a million one [$1.1 million]. I don’t know what qualifying pays, but I still love the place. It has a special place in my heart. I won here twice and my dad [CooCoo] won a qualifying race here. It’s always been good for me.”

The pole winner will get $11,000 and a guaranteed front-row spot in the 500. Only the top two today are automatically in the race. The other spots will be determined by the orders of finish in Thursday’s twin 125-mile qualifiers.

No one will approach the track record of 210.364 mph, set by Elliott in 1987 before restrictor plates were introduced to slow speeds on the high-banked superspeedways here and at Talladega, Ala. The restrictor plates also have increased parity. The four races last year produced four different winners.

Most drivers don’t like restrictor plates because they reduce horsepower. Gordon, however, sees it another way.

“Restrictor-plate racing has always been a positive for Hendrick Motorsports,” he said. “We’re learning more and more about restrictor-plate racing, especially the bodies and the shocks. We’re trying to use that experience and get better.”

Gordon’s teammates are Terry Labonte, who will be starting his 603rd consecutive Winston Cup race, and Wally Dallenbach. Labonte, a two-time Winston Cup champion, is looking for his first Daytona 500 win in 21 starts.

The team’s owner, Rick Hendrick, is back for the first time in two years. When Gordon won in 1997, he dedicated the victory to Hendrick, who had been stricken with leukemia and was unable to attend the race. Last year Hendrick was absent after having been banished from the sport as part of his sentence on a mail-fraud conviction.

Hendrick was fined $250,000 and ordered to stay in his home and avoid the car business and his race team for a year for his role in the American Honda Motor Co. bribery and kickback scandal. His brother, John, ran the team in his absence.

“This is the best medicine in the world for me,” Hendrick said after rejoining the team for the first time since Dec. 31, 1997. He is still undergoing chemotherapy treatments.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

1998 Leaders

Leading money winners from last year’s NASCAR Winston Cup series:

Driver, Manufacturer: Earnings

1. Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet: $9,306,584

2. Mark Martin, Ford: 4,309,006

3. Dale Jarrett, Ford: 4,019,657

4. Dale Earnhardt, Chevrolet: 2,990,749

5. Bobby Labonte, Pontiac: 2,980,052

6. Rusty Wallace, Ford: 2,667,889

7. Jeff Burton, Ford: 2,626,987

8. Jeremy Mayfield, Ford: 2,332,034