Daytona’s Biggest Crash Since 1960 : Motor racing: Twenty-three cars involved in pileup during a Grand National race. No serious injuries.

It was the biggest wreck at Daytona International Speedway in 30 years. On the 13th lap Saturday in the Goody’s 300 Busch Grand National stock car race, a 23-car collision on Turn 4 left the track resembling the Harbor Freeway at 8 a.m.

Dale Earnhardt, driving ahead of the pileup, used the caution flag to catch up to the leaders and overcame mechanical problems later to win the race.

More than half the field of 42 cars was involved in the crash, triggered when Brad Teague took his Oldsmobile low on the fourth turn and got loose. The rear of his car started to slide out and was clipped by Darrell Waltrip. With sheet metal flying, Teague spun, tried to correct and was broadside to a pack of cars coming at him at 180-plus m.p.h.

“After I spun, I got hit about four times, and it felt like I went another two miles after I got hit,” Teague said. “It just happened all of a sudden. It looked like there were a lot of glancing blows.”

Steve Grissom hit Teague broadside, and Michael Waltrip ran out of room, sandwiched between Teague, Grissom and the wall. Hut Stricklin had no place to go but into the rear of Grissom’s car in a cloud of smoke, taking Tommy Ellis with him. Rick Mast piled into the melee behind Stricklin.

“I’ve never seen that many cars spinning and banging,” Stricklin said. “And I’ve never been hit that many times. It felt like it must have been 10 or 15 times.”

Miraculously, there were no serious injuries.

Some drivers tried evasive action. Kyle Petty went low to try to get around and spun into L.D. Ottinger. Others tried the same tack with the same result.

And still others came on blindly. “All I saw was smoke. . . . I was in the smoke and didn’t know where to go,” Mike McLaughlin said. “I was almost through it, and then a car shot down across the track and I popped him.”

“All I could see was the smoke,” Jack Sprague said. “I can’t tell you who I hit.”

Mast: “Once the thing started, there was nowhere you could go.”

And once the collisions ended, the fourth turn looked like a junkyard, with wreckers and ambulances the only moving vehicles.

Ron Cooper was the only driver who needed an ambulance. He was taken to Halifax Medical Center, where tests revealed a concussion but showed no severe head injuries. He was admitted for observation in stable condition.

Track historians said it was the biggest wreck at Daytona since a 1960 modified-sportsman race crash included 37 of a 73-car field.

The wreck left some with a sense of resignation and others angry. “There were just too many hotdogs out there,” Ellis said. “They all wanted to get to the front too quick. There are guys out there who aren’t using their heads. They don’t understand this is a 300-mile race. You can’t win in the first few laps.”

Things were sorted out over a six-lap caution period, and when racing resumed the field had been cut in half. A few of the damaged cars returned from the garage later in the afternoon, mangled sheet metal cut away.

Cars that began the afternoon with as much aerodynamic sleekness as Detroit manufacturers and Daytona crews could muster, looked like Saturday night dirt-track machines, chugging along miles behind the leaders in an attempt to make some money out of the afternoon.

Earnhardt, fortunate to be ahead of the pileup, had to overcome being black-flagged (ordered to the pits by race officials for mechanical problems) because his V-6 powered Chevrolet Lumina was leaking oil just as he had taken the lead on the 53rd lap.

He was down a lap until he passed Dale Jarrett on the 70th lap. Then, when Dave Rezendes’ Oldsmobile began shedding sheet metal seconds later, a caution flag gave Earnhardt the opportunity to catch the lead pack of cars.

Earnhardt won $34,700 for running 120 laps of the 2.5-mile speedway in 2 hours 31 seconds at an average speed of 149.357 m.p.h. He finished 2 1/2 lengths ahead of Harry Gant, with Greg Sacks a close third before a crowd of 110,000. “I thought we were lost,” Earnhardt said of the black-flag episode. “We had a problem with a rear end oil line and couldn’t find it.”

His crew quickly got him back on the track.

Between the quick-fix to his car’s problems and passing Jarrett just before a caution, Earnhardt admitted: “We got lucky on that deal. . . . I was lucky enough not to be close to any of those bad wrecks today, and we were lucky to get that lap back.”

There wasn’t enough luck to go around. Darrell Waltrip, who had started on the pole alongside Earnhardt, quickly dropped back to 10th place, where he became involved in the chain-reaction crash.

Once Earnhardt solved his oil problems, the final 50 laps became a six-car draft for the lead. The problem became gas consumption, and the six cars became four when leader Bobby Labonte and the second-place car of Jimmy Hensley pitted for fuel on the 100th lap.

The remaining four became three when Ernie Irvan lost a gamble, running out of gas on the 117th lap.

Earnhardt had passed Sacks by that time, with Gant at the end of a three-car draft. “We pitted with 50 laps to go and we figured we could run 51 laps,” Earnhardt said. “We had stayed in the draft to save fuel.”

Gant passed Sacks and bore down on Earnhardt on the final lap. “I’ll be doggone, I looked in my rear-view mirror when I got the white flag (symbolizing one lap to go) and there was Harry Gant,” Earnhardt said. “I hadn’t figured on him.”

Earnhardt blocked Gant around the track, with the help of some overtaken traffic, to take the checkered flag for the third time since 1982. He then went to the garage to make adjustments on the Winston Cup car he will drive today in the Daytona 500.

“This old track can be as cantankerous as Darlington,” Earnhardt said. “It’s slick. I look for a long, hot, slick afternoon on Sunday.”

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