Wallace Wins One for Road : In a Wild Finish, He Wins Final Stock Car Race at Riverside

Just when Rusty Wallace got the hang of racing on the road course at Riverside International Raceway, the place is closing.

Wallace, driving drag racer Raymond Beadle’s Blue Max Pontiac, won his second straight Winston Cup race in a controversial finish of the Budweiser 400 Sunday. It was the second straight victory here for the 31-year-old driver from Fenton, Mo., who also won the Winston Western 500 last November.

“It’s nice to know my name will be the last one for both the 400 and 500, but I’d rather come back here next year and try again,” Wallace said. “Since Bob Bondurant taught me how to drive on a road course, I feel confident on this kind of track.”

It was actually Wallace’s third straight NASCAR road course success, as he also won at Watkins Glen, N.Y., last October.

Riverside officials announced the crowd as more than 75,000 for the final stock car race in the track’s history, making it the largest in the track’s 31-year existence. Earthmovers are poised on the track’s perimeters to begin tearing it up in the next few weeks.

All that’s left are a Sports Car Club of America weekend July 3-4, an antique car race July 16-17 and the SCORE world closed course off-road championships Aug. 13-14.

As in the Indianapolis 500, the pace car led more laps than anybody. Eight yellow caution periods accounted for 33 laps, more than a third of the 95-lap race, helping to make it the third slowest NASCAR race in the 47 held here since 1958. Wallace’s winning speed was 88.341 m.p.h.

Only the 1983 Budweiser 400 (88.063) and the 1963 Motor Trend 500 (84.965) were slower. Even in the first stock car ever held here, in 1958, winner Eddie Gray averaged 92.840 m.p.h.

And Sunday’s snail-like pace didn’t count a 25-minute period when the race was stopped to allow workers to install a new concrete barrier at the south end of the start-finish grandstand after Ruben Garcia’s car smashed through a 12x12 wooden post, a concrete wall and a fence before stopping within inches of a second fence protecting the crowded grandstand.

Garcia, a Winston West driver from San Dimas, was not injured, nor were any spectators, although several of them may have suffered from fright at the sight of a 3,500-pound car hurtling straight at them. Curiously, and fortunately, the second fence, which kept spectators from crowding close to the cement wall, was put in place only last Wednesday.

“I don’t know how close I came to the spectators because I had my eyes shut tight,” Garcia said. “All I could do was close my eyes and pray. I hate to see the track close down on this kind of a note.”

A part of the suspension in Garcia’s Chevrolet apparently broke as the car came off the high-speed ninth turn and headed for the wall in front of the timing and scoring tower.

An admission by NASCAR officials that they made a mistake was a major factor in Wallace’s win.

Wallace, pole-sitter Ricky Rudd, Phil Parsons, two-time NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt and Terry Labonte were running nose to tail eight laps from the end when Ken Schrader spun into the dirt entering the front straightaway. This brought out the eighth yellow flag. Under NASCAR rules, cars may race back to the start-finish line, which in this case was almost an entire lap.

On the backstretch, the pace car came out on the track--a lap too soon--causing Wallace and Rudd to slow abruptly. Earnhardt and Parsons shot past them on the outside of the asphalt, with Earnhardt in the lead when they reached the finish line.

NASCAR officials, however, realized the error and returned Wallace and Rudd to the front for a final four-lap dash to the checkered flag.

“That was the scariest part of the race for me, seeing the pace car come out when it did,” Wallace said. “Ricky and I both had to slam on the brakes. We knew we were supposed to race back to the start, but when he pulled out in front of us it let Earnhardt and Parsons get by. Then I had no idea what they (NASCAR) would do. I had no idea what was going on until Barry (Dodson, crew chief) got me on the radio and said, ‘Don’t worry about it, you’re the leader.’ Thank goodness they made the right decision.”

Earnhardt, after finishing fourth, was in no mood to discuss it. It was obvious that he was livid and his wife, Teresa, warned, “I don’t think this is a good time to talk to him right now.”

It was Earnhardt who precipitated the whole thing when he nudged Schrader as they raced through turn 9. Schrader was in turn clipped by Kyle Petty, sending him into the dirt.

“I agree with Earnhardt on that racing back to the finish line on the yellow,” Petty said. “That’s the rule and they shouldn’t have rearranged us. As for the pace car, it never got our in our way. I never saw it on the track.”

In a fender-banging charge that saw Earnhardt out in the dirt as much as he was on the pavement during the last four laps, Labonte managed to move up into second place, with Rudd finishing third, Earnhardt fourth and Parsons fifth.

Richard Petty, a five-time winner here, but not since 1977, finished sixth for one his highest Riverside placements in recent years.

“It would’ve been a different race if there weren’t so many cautions and that red flag period,” Petty said. “The only guy I really raced all day was the 26 car (Rudd) and I could stay with him. Who knows? With a little luck and a few more yellow flags, I might have won but it was a messed up race, so I guess I’ll take my sixth place, go home and try to win next week.”

The race turned on how the contending teams used the caution periods to their benefit--or detriment.

Rudd, in particular, had tough luck. Twice he came in for tires and fuel under a green flag--with the field racing around at better than 100 m.p.h.--only to have a yellow flag come out on the following lap with the pace slowed down to a crawl while the others pitted.

“The car ran good all day,” said Rudd, who drove with a cast on his left leg as the result of a crash two weeks ago in Charlotte. N. C. “My leg didn’t bother me much, but the yellows did.

“All in all, we got out of synch on pit stops. As it turned out, in the end Rusty just had track position on us. If it had been the other way, we might have won. Everything was so haywire at the end. It was a crazy day.”

There were 13 lead changes among 7 drivers, with Wallace leading the final 12 laps.

Wallace won $49,100 for his 2-hour 49-minute ride, but of more significance is that he passed Earnhardt for the points lead. Wallace has 1,790 points to 1,786 for Earnhardt and 1,702 for Labonte. At season’s end, the champion will collect $400,000.

The highest finishing West Coast driver was Bill Schmitt of Redding, who was 12th. Tom Kendall, the UCLA collegian from La Canada-Flintridge who spends most of his racing time in the International Motor Sports Assn. Camel GTO events, finished 18th.

Several long-time Riverside favorites did not fare so well.

Bobby Allison, who has won a record six times here, won a 40-lap main event Saturday night at Saugus Speedway but finished 22nd, two laps back of Wallace.

Darrell Waltrip, coming off a win in the World 600 at Charlotte, looked like he was in an open-wheel race before he finished as his Chevrolet lost its entire left front fender after an excursion into the dirt where he smacked into a worker’s station. No one was hurt, but the car had a funny look to it. Waltrip eventually staggered home 28th.

Darrell’s younger brother, Mike, made the day’s biggest move, climbing from 40th when Betze Snead gave the order to start the race to an 11th place finish. Snead has been the raceway’s secretary for 22 years and was given the honor of starting the last race by Fritz Duda, majority stockholder in the facility.