Wallace Gets Pushed Aside at Phoenix : Auto Racing: Bill Elliott wins Autoworks 500 after Wallace, the NASCAR points leader, is sent spinning into a concrete wall by Stan Barrett.

When Stan Barrett pierced the sound barrier at 739.666 m.p.h. in 1979, he drove in a straight line and there were no other cars on the track at Edwards Air Force Base.

Sunday, at Phoenix International Raceway, where he was surrounded by cars and forced to make left-hand turns in the Autoworks 500 for Winston Cup stock cars, he found driving about 100 m.p.h. more of a problem.

Barrett, in only his fourth race this season, clipped the left rear wheel of Rusty Wallace’s Pontiac in the second turn 56 miles from the end of the race and sent the NASCAR points leader and the leader of the race spinning into the concrete wall.

Wallace had been 20 seconds ahead a few laps earlier and appeared to be cruising toward clinching his first Winston Cup championship and its $1 million bonus. After several stops to repair his crumpled car, Wallace returned to the race and finished 16th.

Bill Elliott, last year’s series champion, led the final 47 laps in a Ford to win an extremely competitive race in which 13 cars finished on the same lap as Elliott and 30 of the 43 cars were still running when the race ended. One, however, Greg Sacks’ florescent green and yellow Chevy, was 152 laps in arrears.

Elliott’s winning speed of 105.683 m.p.h. shattered the race record of 90.457 set last year by Alan Kulwicki.

Wallace, who came into the race with a 109-point lead over Dale Earnhardt, saw his margin cut to 78 with one race remaining. Mark Martin, who finished third behind Terry Labonte, moved past Earnhardt, who finished sixth, by one point. Darrell Waltrip was fourth and Dale Jarrett, son of former champion Ned Jarrett, fifth.

The collision with Barrett caused Wallace to lose 50 points to Martin and 30 to Earnhardt.

In the season finale, Nov. 19 at Atlanta, Wallace needs to finish 18th or better to win the championship no matter what Martin or Earnhardt do.

“I can’t believe what happened, it was a lapped car, a guy I’d lapped about 10 times, and he wrecks me,” Wallace said. “Here’s a guy who runs only two or three times a year, and something like that happens.”

This was actually Barrett’s fourth race. He finished 26th at Watkins Glen, 34th at Talladega and 37th at Charlotte. After breaking the sound barrier, Barrett, known as the Rocket Man, drove the Winston Cup circuit for stuntman Hal Needham in 1980 and 1981 with little success.

“He apologized and I guess he meant it, but I just wish the inexperienced drivers would come out earlier in the year instead of right here at the end when there’s so much strategic stuff going on. A lot of the newer drivers were driving over their head today.”

Barrett had spun in the first turn earlier in the race, but continued after pitting for a new set of tires. At the time he bumped Wallace, he was 13 laps behind.

Junie Donlavey, who owns the Ford that Barrett drove, said the brakes were failing on the car.

“Stan said he was riding the brakes and it got down to where he had to pump them. He’d just pitted and gone back out for a lap when Rusty came by him. He dropped down to let Rusty go by, and when he got to the corner he put his foot on the brakes, and the pedal went to the floor. In other words, if he’d had time, he could have pumped ‘em back up, if Rusty hadn’t been right there.”

Pole-sitter Ken Schrader, who stood to win the Unocal bonus of $197,600 if he won the race from the pole, led briefly at the start of the 312-lap race but was slowed by ignition problems and finished 13th. The bonus will be $410,000 at Atlanta as the track is matching Unocal’s prize, which is an accumulation of 27 races at $7,600 since a driver won wire-to-wire.

“I keep hearing about this pole jinx, but you can win from the front just as easy as you do from the third or fourth starting position,” Schrader said. “If it weren’t for that bonus, no one would be thinking about it.

“We’ll go to Atlanta and try to win the pole, and then we’ll try just as hard to win the race. But if we don’t win the pole, we’ll still try just as hard to win the race. It’s the same with all the guys.”

Wallace, if he listens to Elliott, may not try quite as hard as Earnhardt, Martin and the others. Last year at Atlanta, Elliott’s lead over Wallace was exactly the same as Wallace’s over Martin this year. Elliott drove conservatively, finished 11th and beat Wallace, who won the race, by 24 points.

“Rusty criticized me last year for not driving harder, but the championship is an accumulation of all the races all year and winning the championship was our goal and we accomplished it,” Elliott said. “You never can tell what’s going to happen. Look at today, Rusty just about had the championship clinched and then he loses nearly half his lead.

“If I was Rusty, I’d go to Atlanta with a conservative approach. He says that’s not his style, but we’ll see. I’m going to enjoy watching what he does, hopefully from my rear view mirrors.”

Elliott, who said he could not have beaten Wallace or Kulwicki if they hadn’t had problems, collected $57,900. It was his third victory this year after a slow start because of a broken arm before the Daytona 500 opening race.

“I can’t help but feel good about this season even though we’re only fifth in the points,” the Dawsonville, Ga., driver said. “After what happened in February, what we accomplished was monumental. When a driver is hurt, it means you can’t test, and if you can’t test, it means you fall a half a lap behind the other guys.

“This win really pumped up our guys and we’ll go to Atlanta looking for another win on our home track. Then we can start looking to next year and getting the championship back.”

Kulwicki, last year’s winner, led 91 laps, 10 more than Wallace, but a poor pit stop dropped him a lap down. A rookie jack man, handling the chore for the first time, let the car down too soon and it to be jacked up again to finish changing the right-side tires.

A record crowd of more than 65,000 watched the race.