MOTOR RACING NASCAR AT PHOENIX : Wallace Is in Driver’s Seat in Race for Title

PHOENIX — West of the hubbub of downtown Phoenix, out where the cotton fields flourish in the bottom lands of the Salt River, the stock car racing championship of NASCAR may be determined today at a most improbable site.

Phoenix International Raceway is the place, a one-mile oval track with a kink on its backside. It sits in a desert, far removed from the wooded green countryside of North Carolina, where the three contenders--Rusty Wallace, Dale Earnhardt and Mark Martin--call home while racing on the Winston Cup circuit.

The track, built in 1964 and given a $7-million face lift by cotton farmer Buddy Jobe since he took over the rickety facility four years ago, is one of the fastest miles in racing. The leaders will be lapping it every 28 seconds today.

Phoenix joined the circuit a year ago, after Riverside International Raceway had closed its doors. NASCAR had raced at Riverside for 27 years.

Now the newcomer may go a long way toward determining which driver will step up and collect $1 million as the 1989 Winston Cup champion.

Today’s Autoworks 500, a 312-mile--that’s 500-kilometers--race, is No. 28 on a 29-race schedule that closes in Atlanta on Nov. 19.

Wallace, who came from the short tracks of the Midwest in 1984 to test his skills against the likes of Darrell Waltrip, Bobby Allison, Bill Elliott, Richard Petty and Earnhardt, leads Earnhardt by 109 points and Martin by 128.

The situation:

--If Wallace finishes 12th or better in both today’s race and at Atlanta, he will win the Winston Cup, even if Earnhardt wins both races and leads the most laps.

--If Wallace wins today and Earnhardt finishes 20th or worse, Wallace will win the championship without needing to race at Atlanta.

--If Wallace wins today and Martin finishes 13th or worse, Martin will be eliminated from contention.

“That’s all too iffy for me,” Wallace said after being apprised of the situation. “Don’t forget, I was 75 points behind Dale going to Charlotte and came out of there with a 35-point lead. That’s how fast things can turn around.”

That pivotal race was Oct. 8 and at the time Earnhardt appeared headed for his fourth Winston Cup championship. A broken camshaft forced him out after 13 laps, however, and he finished 42nd--last--while Wallace was finishing eighth.

“That camshaft deal really hurt us because it was something no one could do anything about,” Earnhardt said. “Rusty (Wallace) didn’t beat us, we beat ourselves. Now we’ll just have to run as hard as we can, like we always do, and see what happens. If Rusty runs well, there’s nothing more we can do, but he’d better not go out there with the idea of stroking and holding his lead.”

Earnhardt, who drives a jet-black Chevy Lumina for Richard Childress, is no stroker. If he had done just a little stroking, though, he might be so far ahead in points--even after the Charlotte debacle--that they couldn’t catch him.

In the next race, at North Wilkesboro, N.C., Earnhardt led 342 of 400 laps before crashing into Ricky Rudd on the final lap. The accident dropped him back to 10th. If he had been patient and content with second place, he would have taken the lead back from Wallace.

Two weeks ago, at Rockingham, N.C., Earnhardt tangled with Wallace and came out the worse for it. He finished 20th and lost another 72 points.

“The deal at Rockingham was just a bad-luck deal I got into when I should have known better,” Earnhardt said. “I should have had better sense than to race Rusty on the outside. I feel bad at myself for trusting someone like that to race underneath me that I thought I could race with.

“I’m not mad at him or anything, but I’ll know not to trust him again. I know he said he slipped, but I thought he was a better driver than to slip.”

Wallace, who has six wins this season in a Pontiac owned by former drag racing champion Raymond Beadle’s Blue Max team, says he doesn’t know how to stroke.

“I’m not going out and deliberately abuse the car, if that’s what you mean by not stroking, but I’m not going to do anything different than I have been doing,” he said. “My strategy will be the same as always, to drive as hard as I can. That’s it.

“If I started laying off and dropped back in the pack, I would get myself where a lot of trouble can happen. I’d probably get in a wreck or something crazy would happen.

“I’m tired of hearing people say I’ll stroke it here and at Atlanta. What I’d like to do is come off the last turn at Atlanta with the tires smoking and the car crossed-up and just say, ‘See, I told you I wasn’t going to stroke.’ ”

Martin, like Wallace a product of the Midwestern tracks not affiliated with NASCAR, projected himself into the points race when he drove his Jack Roush-prepared Ford Thunderbird to victory at Rockingham.

“If we were to win the championship, it would be because of bad luck to Rusty and I don’t want to wish that on him,” Martin said.

That Martin is driving a Winston Cup car at all is a tribute to his persistence.

After losing out to Geoff Bodine as rookie of the year in 1982, Martin’s fortunes bottomed out. His sponsor failed to pay the bills and Martin was forced to spend what personal money he had saved from three championship seasons in the American Speed Assn.

In midseason of 1983, the Batesville (Ark.) driver was dropped from J.D. Stacy’s team, leaving him without a ride. It was back to the ASA again, and in three years he was its champion again. This caught the attention of Ford and he was hired to drive a Thunderbird in the Busch Grand National series.

“I never thought I would return to Winston Cup racing,” he said. “But the Busch series helped me get noticed again. When Jack (Roush) decided to finally start a team, I found a group of guys who were as hungry to prove themselves in Winston Cup as I was.

“I was not surprised that we could run up front. I was a little surprised it took us so long to get that first win.”

Martin had five second-place finishes before breaking through at Rockingham.

Roush, who owns an automotive research and development firm in Livonia, Mich., managed winning teams in the Trans-Am and Camel GTO series this year as well as taking on NASCAR. Pete Halsmer and Wally Dallenbach Jr. finished 1-2 in a pair of Roush Cougars in the GTO, and Dorsey Schroeder drove one of Roush’s Mustangs to the Trans-Am title.

“I’ve been looking at Winston Cup since 1981 but I didn’t want to move in until I knew I wouldn’t be embarrassed,” Roush said. “I looked at this series like a 15-pound dog looks at a 25-pound groundhog. I wanted to be sure when I came in that I came with the right people and the right situation.”

Martin did not win the pole here, but when Ken Schrader won it Friday with a record lap of 124.645 m.p.h., it meant that Martin had clinched the $30,000 prize for being the fastest qualifier the most times. Martin was been on the pole six times.

“No matter what happens in these next two races, it’s been a whale of a year,” Martin said. “Darrell Waltrip said that to win the championship, first you have to lose it. Maybe this will be our losing year and we can come back next year and win.”

Wallace had his losing year in 1988, when he won four of the final five races and lost by 24 points to Elliott.

“I learned something from last year,” Wallace said. “Last year, I didn’t think anything about getting five points for leading a race, and five more for leading the most laps. When I thought about it, I realized that in 29 races that could add up to 290 points.

“I lost by 24 and that told me something. I’ve gone for points every chance I’ve had. I’ve led more laps than anybody.

“I’m glad we’re running Phoenix late in the season, where it really counts, because it’s one of my favorites. It reminds me of the mile at Milwaukee where Mark and I have raced many times against each other. It suits the way I drive.”