Top Row Seat - Sears Point
Dateline: 05/06/97Finally!
After a long 42 race winless streak Mark Martin finally brought home the win from Sears Point Raceway. Not much you can say about the race itself. Mark dominated by leading 69 of the 74 laps. The only other cars to lead were Rusty Wallace, Dale Jarrett, and Terry Labonte.
Brain Fade In The #2
The only car on the track who could race with Mark was Rusty Wallace. However Rusty made two rare mental mistakes which cost him his chance to challenge for the win. Early in the race Rusty was in the lead when he forgot to slow down for turn seven and just drove straight off the track and out of the lead. Um, Rusty? 3400 pound racecars don't turn very sharply at 140mph.
Rusty had worked his way back up into the top three by mid race when he made his second mistake of the afternoon. Rusty overrevved his engine which caused him to drop a cylinder. As a result his engine let go a few laps later.
I guess sometimes everybody just has "one of those days."
Great Run For Darrell
Darrell Waltrip looped his car during first round qualifying however he came back the next day and set the fastest time of the second round and sixth fastest overall. He went on Sunday to prove that this was not a fluke by steadily climbing from his 26th place starting position up to a strong 5th place finish. It is nice to see DW running strong again. I'd love to see him win one more before he trades in his helmet for a microphone full time.
Swervin' Irvan Update
Ernie was up to his same old tricks again this week. As one of my readers said in an e-mail "It looked like Ernie was driving a snowplow instead of a racecar ... I only saw him go around one driver all day." When the TV coverage first picked up Ernie he already had noticable damage to the front of his car where he presumably had already hit somebody. Then he tried to stick it in under Grissom in the hairpin and bumped him, spun out, and lost 12 spots on the racetrack. Later he took out Derrike Cope and then followed that up by putting a bumper on Ward Burton and spinning him out. That is four incidents that we know of in this one race. I'll say it again, I hope Ernie Irvan gets replaced in that car before he hurts someone.
Back To Talladega
This Saturday it's back to Talladega to make up the rained out event from two weeks ago. A number of people have expressed some fear over the possibility (or probability) that we will see a serious multi-car incident. Restrictor plate racing is a scary proposition. I can only hope that everyone uses their head and stays patient all day long. One thing that would help ensure a safe race would be if Ernie would blow his motor on the pace lap. Then we'd all have one less idiot to worry about.
Go Fast, Turn Left, Stay Safe!
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