Sunday, April 01, 2001
Auto Racing Insider
Is Winston Cup a six-man race?
By Tom Groeschen
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The NASCAR Winston Cup season has 30 races remaining, but only six drivers have a chance of winning the season points race. By one yardstick, anyway.
Only five times in the modern Winston Cup era (1972-present) has the eventual season champion not won in the first six races. This year, that puts Michael Waltrip, Steve Park, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Dale Jarrett and Elliott Sadler in the running.
Breaking it down further, it seems reasonable that Jarrett and Gordon are the favorites. They both are former Winston Cup champions and rank 1-2 in the 2001 points race (Jarrett 871, Gordon 826). Next come Sterling Marlin (823), Johnny Benson (776) and Park (758).
Also, only a few of NASCAR's big stars are anywhere near Jarrett and Gordon. Rusty Wallace (No.6 in points) is the only former Winston Cup champ within range of the leaders.
Perennial hammers such as Tony Stewart (18th), Bobby Labonte (19th), Mark Martin (27th) and Jeff Burton (36th) are out of the hunt, realistically if not mathematically. They're too good not to rebound, but they've been buried by a combination of poor qualifying, crashes and bad luck.
Since 1972, drivers who won a Winston Cup title despite not winning in the first six races were Benny Parsons (1973), Terry Labonte (1984 and '96), Darrell Waltrip (1985) and Jarrett (1999).
The so-called “modern” Winston Cup era began in 1972, when the season was trimmed from 48 races to 31. This year's schedule has 36 races.
DRIVERS COMING: Michael Waltrip, Park and Brett Bodine and former driver Ernie Irvan will
be at Kentucky Speedway on May 12 to drive in a Legends exhibition race. Legends cars are five-eighths-scale replicas of old hot rods.
The race is part of the WLW-AM (700) “Day at the Races,” which features an ARCA stock race.
The Winston drivers are off the next day (Sunday, May 13) for Mothers' Day, a holiday NASCAR always observes.
DRIVERS NOT COMING: An update to an item that ran in this space last Sunday: The Kentucky Speedway practice by Win ston drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kevin Harvick, scheduled for April9-10, has been canceled. Representatives of the drivers informed the speedway last week they would not be coming.
“It's unfortunate, but these things happen,” speedway spokesman Tim Bray said. “We also have people call at the last minute and want to test.”
The best way to stay abreast of testing, Bray said, is www.kentuckyspeedway.com. Click on the “Quick Picks” in the upper right corner, then go to “Track Testing.”
NHRA UPDATE: Del Worsham upset 10-time NHRA Funny Car champion John Force for the fourth victory of his career, last week at Baytown, Texas.
Mike Dunn (Top Fuel), Warren Johnson (Pro Stock), Angelle Savoie (Pro Stock Motorcycle) and Randy Daniels (Pro Stock Truck) also won at the O'Reilly Nationals at Houston Raceway Park.
Two days before the finals, Dunn broke the NHRA speed standard with a pass of 331.61 mph. But it was not backed up with another pass within one percent of the posted figure so, by rule, his mark will not be an official national record. But Dunn will get credit as the sport's fastest man.
The previous best NHRA speed was 330.23 mph by Tony Schumacher in 1999.
E-mail tgroeschen@enquirer.com.
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