Western 500 Qualifying : Richmond’s Wild Pole Ride Nets Him $30,000

Tim Richmond knew what he had to do to earn the $30,000 Busch Pole bonus for winning the most Winston Cup poles Friday. So he went out and did it.

He had to break a Riverside International Raceway track record of 117.691 m.p.h., set only an hour earlier by Darrell Waltrip.

If he couldn’t better that in one tour around the eight-turn, 2.62-mile road course, the $30,000 would go to his Hendrick Motorsports teammate, Geoff Bodine.

Richmond, driving a Chevrolet prepared by Harry Hyde, drove so hard that he bent an intake valve while downshifting, but he still managed to bring the car home at a record 118.247 m.p.h.

This won him the bonus and put him on the pole for Sunday’s $404,000 Winston Western 500, the final race of the 29-race NASCAR season.

“The first three-quarters of the lap was a fast one, but the finish was neither safe nor smooth,” Richmond said. “I definitely let it all hang out.

“When I downshifted to third in Turn 9, it seemed like an eternity getting from nine to the finish line. The engine was popping and backfiring and I wasn’t sure what I’d done until I got up through the esses (turns 3, 4 and 5) and I saw the people cheering me.”

It was Richmond’s eighth pole, the same number that Bodine has won, but Richmond won the tiebreaker because he had seven second-place finishes to six for Bodine.

“What can I say?” asked Bodine, who could muster only 116.858 m.p.h., good for fourth position. “It’s disheartening. We tried our best. We gave it everything we had, but obviously we didn’t have enough. I thought it was a good lap, a darn good lap, to say the least.”

This will be the first time in 13 Winston Cup races at Riverside that neither Waltrip nor Terry Labonte will start from the pole. Not since Cale Yarborough was the fastest qualifier in the June, 1980, Hodgdon 400 had the two-driver monopoly been broken.

“If we get beat, somebody will have to run one heck of a lap,” Waltrip said as he climbed out of Junior Johnson’s car for the last time as a qualifier. Next year, Waltrip will become a third member of the Hendrick Motorsports team with Richmond and Bodine.

When Richmond ran his “heck of a lap,” it prompted Waltrip to make another statement:

“You know what you’re looking at, don’t you? You’re looking at the future of 1987, that’s what.”

Only Ricky Rudd, the defending Winston Western champion, broke up the Hendrick combine-to-be as he edged Bodine for the third spot with a 116.911 lap.

With Waltrip moving to the Hendrick team next season, Labonte will take Waltrip’s seat with Junior Johnson.

Waltrip’s record lap had broken his own mark of 117.006 set last June. In 28 races (one race did not have a pole qualifying because of rain), 23 qualifying records were broken this year.

Twenty-five cars qualified Friday, with an additional 15 being added to the field today after a 9 a.m. qualifying session.

Among those still not in Sunday’s race are Hershel McGriff and Chad Little, the two drivers contending for the Winston West championship.

A surprise in the 25th spot is Al Unser, three-time Indianapolis 500 champion, who qualified at 113.438 in a Pontiac. It is Unser’s second stock car race this year, his having driven at Watkins Glen, N.Y., in another road race.

Duke Hoenshell of Orange won the pole for today’s Motorcraft/Carquest 300, the final event of NASCAR’s Southwest Tour, but was disqualified in a post-time trial inspection.

Hoenshell’s Chevrolet Camaro did not meet construction criteria, according to Bob Sweeney, NASCAR western operations director of competition. However, Hoenshell will be permitted to start at the rear of the 40-car field, but with an additional 150 pounds of ballast.

“I’m just grateful they’re letting me race. I’ll be coming through, you can count on that,” Hoenshell said.

His qualifying speed of 116.118 m.p.h. was nearly two miles faster than Jim Lee of Vista, Calif., who will now start on the pole with a 114.395 effort. Alongside Lee will be Million Dollar Bill Elliott, the Dawsonville, Ga., veteran who collected a $1-million bonus last year for winning three superspeedway races.

Although Hoenshell will race today, he was ordered to rebuild the frame before his next Southwest Tour event.