Earnhardt Puts His Foot Down Over New Rules

Dale Earnhardt says NASCAR is beginning to control too much of the race cars.

A recent technical bulletin from the sanctioning body advised the Winston Cup teams that they will be adding 75 pounds of weight on each of the rear springs at Daytona and Talladega, the two biggest and fastest tracks on which NASCAR races. The stated purpose is to keep the teams from using lighter - and therefore less safe - springs to gain downforce and increase speed.

“I’m a little disappointed in them saying you’ve got to run these springs,” said Earnhardt. “They’re starting to take away the chassis stuff from the drivers and the crews.

“They’ve always tried to keep a handle on the aerodynamics and what you can do. I understood that. Now they want to do the springs. Next it’ll be the shocks.

“Pretty soon, it’ll be like IROC,” the seven-time Winston Cup champion said, referring to the all-star series in which the drivers compete in identically prepared Pontiac Firebirds. “They’ll build the cars and you’ll buy or rent a car from them and you’ll put the driver in it and go racing.

“I don’t really think that will happen, but it looks that way sometimes. It’s getting so technical to get through all the guidelines they have. It takes a lot of hard work to get the cars to go fast and keep the cars within their measurements. That last change has really created more work.”

Earnhardt said his team focused final testing at Daytona on the rules governing springs and body height with the added weight.

“It’s worse now than when we ran the soft springs,” he said.

No advantage

One thing that Terry Labonte will not get along with his 1996 Winston Cup championship is the advantage of having first choice of pit stall throughout the new season.

The rule allowing the reigning champion that choice has been rescinded. Instead, the pole-winner for each race will get first choice, followed by the second-fastest qualifier and so on.

“I don’t have a problem with that at all,” said Labonte, who won his first title in 1984 and had the first pit choice all of the next season. “That wasn’t a fair rule.

“This is the only sport I know of that gave the defending champion a definite advantage every week. Now, if I don’t win the championship this year and they change it back, I’ll be mad. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Labonte said the old rule gave the defending champion a virtually automatic 50-100 points a season.

“It could have been worth a win or two last year, as well,” he said.

Aiming for 50

Rusty Wallace, who is tied for 11th on the all-time victory list with 46 Winston Cup wins, is eying the half-century mark.

“Halfway through the year, I’d like to be breaking the big five-oh,” Wallace said. “We won six (including a non-points race in Japan) last year, and I feel like we gave some others away.

“Winning 10 races this year is not out of the question. (Jeff) Gordon did it last year and I did it a couple of years ago.”

Test results

Winter testing is over and everybody is getting ready for the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 16, apparently with no big advantage for either Ford or Chevrolet, the two makes that have dominated the series in recent years.

John Andretti led the January testing at Daytona International Speedway, turning a lap of 189.458 mph in a Ford. Close behind at 188.620 was the Chevrolet of two-time Daytona winner Sterling Marlin.

Rusty Wallace’s Ford was next at 188.446, followed by the Chevy of Earnhardt at 188.324 and the Ford of Greg Sacks at 188.222.