Elliott’s Slingshot Move Fails to Catch Schrader : Spinning Car Helps Parsons Win Other 125-Mile Qualifying Race at Daytona

The Bill Elliott Express that seemed unbeatable as it roared through Speed Weeks ’87 finally was beaten here Thursday.

It took a photo finish to do it, though.

Elliott, who had not lost anything since coming here two weeks ago, lost by four inches to fellow Ford Thunderbird driver Ken Schrader in the first of two 125-mile qualifying races for Sunday’s Daytona 500.

The standard stock car racing technique so familiar at Daytona International Speedway failed Elliott as Schrader, a former sprint car champion, fought him off in a side-by-side race through the final turn and down the high banking to the finish line.

It was the first stock car win for Schrader, 31, since he left the United States Auto Club’s sprint car and dirt track circuits in 1984 to try his luck in NASCAR’s Winston Cup series.

Benny Parsons, winless since 1984 except for an invitational race last year, won the second 125-mile heat when he squeezed past a spinning car on the final lap and beat Bobby Allison to the finish line.

It was Parsons’ first Winston Cup start in one of car owner Rick Hendrick’s three front-line Chevrolets as a replacement for Tim Richmond, who is sidelined with pneumonia.

The races offered a study in contrasts.

In the first, two spectacular accidents that sent three drivers--one of them four-time Indianapolis 500 winner A.J. Foyt--to the hospital, kept the pace car on the track for 17 of the 50 laps. That held Schrader’s winning speed to 130.397 m.p.h.

In the second, there was only one three-lap caution flag for a stalled car, so Parsons’ speed was 182.778.

The statistics are misleading, however, as the pace set by Schrader, Elliott and Buddy Baker’s Oldsmobile in the first race was much faster. After the first five laps, Baker was averaging an even 200 m.p.h.

The dizzying speed was halted abruptly when the engine exploded in Phil Barkdoll’s Olds, spewing flaming fuel on the track.

Barkdoll climbed uninjured from his burning car and crews cleaned up the mess, but no sooner had Baker, Elliott, Dale Earnhardt and Neil Bonnett resumed speed when Foyt, Tommy Ellis, Jim Sauter and Greg Sacks tangled between the third and fourth turns, sending Ellis’ Chevy tumbling down the track in a series of barrel rolls.

“I saw A.J. and the others get hooked up sliding back and forth, but I had nowhere to go,” Ellis said. “I started to go high, and they went high, so I tried to go low and there they were.

“When you hit a car at that speed, cars just get airborne. There’s nothing you can do once the air gets under them. I had a pretty wild ride.”

Foyt was taken to Halifax Medical Center for X-rays of his right shoulder but there were no breaks. Foyt’s car was demolished, but he plans to start Sunday’s race from the rear of the field in a borrowed car.

Schrader had been quietly running along in sixth place until the second caution period on lap 22. All the leaders made a pit stop and when everyone had returned to the track, Schrader was in front. Once there, he stayed there.

After Elliott had worked his way up to second place and set sail after Schrader, the throng of 90,000 sat back on a sunny day and waited for the red and white No. 9 to make its move.

Through the final 10 laps, Elliott ran bumper to bumper behind Schrader, now and then challenging him briefly before tucking in behind again.

The message was clear: Elliott would tail the leader until the final lap and then sweep past him with a dramatic slingshot move off the high bank into the dash to the finish line. It’s the way it always happens.

Sure enough, as the two cars charged into the 31-degree banking of the third turn on the final lap, Elliott swung high and pulled alongside Schrader. The dreaded slingshot was about to strike again.

Then a strange thing happened. Instead of slipping back, Schrader kept his T-Bird alongside Elliott’s as the two Fords headed into the 1,800-foot straightaway to the finish.

It looked like a dead heat as they crossed the stripe at 200 m.p.h. and it actually took a photo to find the white nose of Schrader’s Ford four inches ahead of the red nose of Elliott’s.

Schrader was as surprised as anyone.

“I had hoped to be behind going into the last lap,” he said. “I got on the radio and asked Junie (car owner Junie Donlavey), ‘What do I do now? I’m ahead of him.’

“It was Junie’s decision to slow down, maybe six or seven miles an hour, so I could keep my car on the bottom of the race track. I think Bill was expecting me to go high.

“I didn’t know if I won or not, but it didn’t matter. I knew the worst I could get was second, and that was great.”

Elliott was a bit nonplussed at the result.

“What can I say? I tried what I thought would work and it didn’t,” he said. “I couldn’t do anything with him with a lap and a half to go. It looked like he came back awfully strong (at the finish).”

Elliott, by virtue of his record-setting 210.364 m.p.h. qualifying lap last Monday, will start on the pole Sunday. Rookie Davey Allison, the second-fastest qualifier, will start alongside him.

Davey and his father, Bobby, started side by side in the second heat and stayed that way for nearly two laps before Geoff Bodine, last year’s 500 winner, broke them up.

Bodine, also driving a Hendricks Chevy, led the first half of the race until a tire change seemed to slow him down. That allowed Parsons to take over and lead the final 23 laps.

Young Allison, after a wild slide through the first turn late in the race, recovered and finished sixth.

As the leaders started the final lap, Blackie Wangerin spun in the first turn and almost collected Parsons.

“I don’t think (Wangerin) realized we were right behind him,” Parsons said. “When he started to spin, I saw a hole between him and the fence so I went up there and got through somehow.

“Bobby was behind me and he had to get slowed by all the things going on. Once I got through the hole, I had clear sailing.”