Pontiacs Making Impression In Winston Cup

It’s been a few years since anybody in NASCAR gave much thought to Pontiac teams.

Not since Rusty Wallace won 10 races in a Grand Prix in 1993 has the General Motors brand been a factor in the Winston Cup manufacturers’ championship or the season point standings.

This could be the year that changes, starting with Sunday’s Daytona 500 in which Bobby Labonte’s Grand Prix will start from the inside of the front row of the 43-car field.

“I think the dark horse in this deal is the Pontiac,” said Mike Skinner, a Chevrolet driver who started on the pole last year. “NASCAR has dropped the guard a little bit on the Pontiac and let them get up to speed. They’re knocking on the door.

“You get to places like Rockingham and Las Vegas, that Pontiac is going to be awfully strong.”

GM has hoped Pontiac would become a truly competitive car ever since the reshaped Grand Prix was introduced in 1996. But, unlike the Chevrolet Monte Carlo, which was an instant success when it replaced the Lumina in 1995, the Grand Prix has developed slowly.

Other than a victory by Bobby Hamilton in the Petty Enterprises car that fall at Phoenix, there wasn’t much to crow about until the second half of last year.

That’s when Hamilton, Labonte and the Pontiacs driven by Johnny Benson, Ward Burton and Kyle Petty began to show up more often in the top 10.

In fact, Pontiacs won two of the last three races, with Hamilton taking the race at Rockingham and Labonte closing the season with a victory at Atlanta. Grand Prixs finished in the top three in the last eight races of 1997.

Now, with Ford introducing an untried Taurus to replace its Thunderbird, GM teams hope the up-front battle this season will be a family affair.

The Pontiacs might not be out of the woods, however.

NASCAR has ordered a rule change, beginning next week at Rockingham, for all the cars, changing the aerodynamics by lowering the rear spoiler and raising the front air dam to take some of the downforce away from the cars.

That, in turn, is intended to force the drivers to get off the gas pedal a bit in the turns, particularly on midsize tracks.

“If you build your car according to those rules, you can build a better car,” Petty said. “We’ve now built cars according to the old rules, and now we have to race them under the new rules. Until you get a chance to build brand new cars, the first two races are going to be kind of goofy.”

Despite the changes, Labonte is confident his team can compete for the championship this season.

“It might be the best year for Pontiac in quite a while,” he said. “But we’ll have to wait and see.”