Waltrip Fails To Qualify

Darrell Waltrip’s fading Winston Cup career hit a low when the three-time Winston Cup champion failed to make the field for Sunday’s UAW-GM Quality 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.

Kenny Wallace led the second round of time trials.

Waltrip, 50, who has only one top-five finish in 1997 and has not won a race in more than five years, also was not eligible for the only provisional starting spot available to past series champions. That spot was assigned to defending champion Terry Labonte.

Spokane’s Chad Little had a time of 180.403 to qualify 31st.

Rusty Wallace was fined $5,000 by NASCAR for “actions detrimental to automobile racing,” specifically his comments during a postrace radio interview.

“After the race was over, they interviewed me and I said, ‘I don’t give a blank about myself, because I’ve won a lot of races. But I feel really bad for the team’,” Wallace said. “They didn’t like it. So they fined me $5,000.”

Wallace was upset because NASCAR penalized him for jumping a restart with 22 laps left in the Hanes 500, which was run Monday in Martinsville, Va. Wallace was leading, but was black-flagged and forced onto pit road for a stop-and-go penalty. Wallace wound up 15th.

Joe Nemechek edged Dick Trickle to lead a sweep by Winston Cup regulars for the top five starting spots in Saturday’s All Pro Bumper-To-Bumper 300 NASCAR Busch Grand National race in Concord, N.C.