Earnhardt’s Troubles Don’t Get Him Down

Larry McReynolds isn’t buying the talk that he and Dale Earnhardt are a bad match as crew chief and driver for Richard Childress Racing.

Earnhardt, yearning to win a record eighth Winston Cup championship, has gone without a race victory since March 1996 and has been only marginally competitive in the first six races in his first season allied with McReynolds.

With his season-best sixth-place finish last Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, Earnhardt now has two top-10 finishes in 1997 and stands 10th in the standings, trailing leader Dale Jarrett by 291 points. He hasn’t led a lap since the season-opening Daytona 500.

In the latest race, Earnhardt was caught up in a 14-car crash on the first lap.

“The car wouldn’t fire when we wrecked … and we lost a lap,” Earnhardt said. “We really worked hard getting that lap back, but we didn’t have enough to get them there at the end.

“We’re gaining on it, though. Sixth place isn’t what we’re after, but it’s better than where we’ve been. We’ll get them (Sunday) at Bristol.”

McReynolds, former team manager and crew chief for Robert Yates Racing, said, “Considering the scoreboard (at Texas) had zero laps on it and we were sitting down there in turn one and it wouldn’t crank, I hope that shows the strength and determination of this group.

“We keep climbing the ladder. We can reach it, touch it and feel it now. We can almost grab it,” McReynolds continued. “Some people have said that Dale and I are having troubles communicating. Well, it just ain’t true. We have a very good relationship and I think we are really getting to understand each other and the way we do things.”

Brothers in arms

Nobody was happier for the Texas winner than his older brother, Ward Burton, whose only Winston Cup victory came at Rockingham in October 1995.

“I feel great for Jeff,” said Ward, 35, six years older than his brother. “I had to battle the Texas Rangers to let me in Victory Lane and congratulate him. I finally jumped the fence.

“It’s been a while since I won my race, but it’s a feeling that’s hard to beat other than good things happening to your family,” he added. “As much as this sport can drag you down, it’s really fun in life winning.”

It’s not too unusual for the brother of another Winston Cup driver to win a race. After all, the series is loaded with siblings.

On Sunday, there were five sets of brothers in the 43-car field. Besides the Burtons, there were three Bodines, three Wallaces, two Waltrips and two Labontes.

Aero rules

Reacting to recent aerodynamic rule changes that he says have unfairly targeted teams running Ford Thunderbirds, Jack Roush says some of the top General Motors teams may either be trying to hide their advantage or sandbagging.

Roush raised questions about the Chevys of Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte and Dale Earnhardt.

“Whether they are playing like they should or they are holding back a bit, I don’t know,” said Roush, who owns a team that fields Fords for Jeff Burton, Mark Martin and Ted Musgrave.

“The Pontiac has got the green light to go. If one of these top 10 drivers was in a Pontiac, he would go to the front and be gone. Then the Pontiac wouldn’t be what it is today,” added Roush, apparently inferring that NASCAR would change the rules to slow down the GM cars if they performed too well.

In Texas, Burton gave Ford its fourth straight victory and Roush his first win in 40 starts, dating to October 1995 when Martin last won. Chevy has won two races and Pontiac none so far this year.

“I’ve always thought a lot of Jack Roush’s organization, and I congratulate him on Jeff Burton’s win,” said Gary Claudio, motorsports manager of Pontiac, whose best finisher was third-place Bobby Labonte. “Based on Mr. Roush’s comments, it certainly appears he would be interested in switching his operation over to Pontiac, I’d certainly be interested in talking to him about that.”

Raise in pay

Jeff Burton’s payday for winning the inaugural Winston Cup race at the Texas track was $354,350, raising his season earnings to $594,724. That’s third on the money list for 1997.

Prior to last Sunday’s race, Burton had won $240,374, placing him 11th on the list.

The winner’s check in Texas was the sixth biggest in NASCAR history. Jeff Gordon set the record, $613,000, in 1994 when he won the first Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Going on

A number of people associated with the NASCAR series got a lump in their throats when Joe Nemechek spun and slid hard into the car driven by Johnny Benson Jr.

Many are still grieving over Joe’s younger brother John, who died March 21 after a crash during a truck race the previous weekend at Homestead, Fla.

When the elder Nemechek emerged from his car with only a bruised chest, there were many sighs of relief.

“It’d hard to believe he’s gone,” Nemechek said. “We have to figure out how to get our lives back in order.

“I’m a racer,” he continued. “Our whole family lives for racing. You never dream something like this can happen to anybody, especially to someone in your own family.”

Waltrip flashback

Darrell Waltrip’s Chevrolet Monte Carlo is taking a trip down memory lane this weekend.

Waltrip’s car still has the markings of his current sponsor, Western Auto’s Parts America, but instead of the company’s usual blue, white and fluorescent red paint scheme, it features the red and white striping his cars had from 1984-86. That was when Waltrip drove a Budweiser-sponsored car for Junior Johnson, winning 13 races, nine poles and his third Winston Cup title.

This weekend’s paint scheme is the first of five retro looks Waltrip will unveil this season to commemorate his 25th anniversary as a full-time competitor on the circuit.

Stats of the week

Sterling Marlin, off to a very slow start, came up with his first top-10 finish of the season (eighth) at Texas and leaped all the way from 22nd to 12th in the season standings.

On the other side of the ledger, Jeff Gordon, who opened the season with two straight victories, crashed while leading Sunday’s race and wound up finishing 30th. That dropped him from second to fifth in the points.