MOTOR RACING : Earnhardt Puts Pileup, Daytona Field Behind

A second-lap pileup eliminated half the field from contention Saturday in the Pepsi 400, and Dale Earnhardt eliminated everybody else.

Earnhardt led 127 of the 160 laps for his 44th Winston Cup victory--but his first at Daytona International Speedway.

“Daytona is just a hard place to win races at,” he said.

Earnhardt, starting third, passed pole-sitter Greg Sacks on the inside going into the first turn on the first lap. Sacks, Derrike Cope and Richard Petty started the chain-reaction collision moments later.

No one was hurt, but at least 23 cars in the 40-car field sustained damage. Officials stopped the race for 36 minutes so wreckage could be removed from the track.

Twenty-three cars were running when the race resumed. Twelve others later returned to the track, some for only a brief time.

“I don’t think the wreck made it that much easier for me,” Earnhardt said. “There were still some good cars in there.

“I wish they all could’ve been racing there at the end. I still feel like my Chevrolet would’ve been strong enough to win.”

Earnhardt, a three-time Winston Cup season champion, has had strong cars before at Daytona but has been plagued by misfortune. His worst break occurred at the Daytona 500 in February, when he led most of the race but fell out of first place because of a flat tire a mile from the finish.

“The last lap today I wasn’t really thinking about that,” Earnhardt said. “I was just mainly thinking of getting her back to the (start-finish) line, and I didn’t count her won until we got there.”

Earnhardt, who won $72,850, led for 114 of the first 135 laps. After a pit stop, he regained the lead for good on the 143rd lap.

He beat finisher Alan Kulwicki by 1.6 seconds. Ken Schrader was third.

Bobby Hillin Jr. was running a close second with 60 miles left, but he spun his Buick entering his pit, and the ensuing delay knocked him out of contention.

Some of the victims of the early pileup had harsh words for Petty, Cope and Sacks. They were running three abreast in the tight field when they came together, sending Cope and Sacks into the wall and blocking the track.

“There were just too many drivers trying to run hard too early in the race,” said defending champion Davey Allison, whose car was damaged but able to continue. “There’s no excuse for it.”

Cope was able to return and complete 100 laps. But the wreck sidelined the Sacks and Petty cars for the day.

“I don’t know if it was stupid driving,” Sacks said. “There just wasn’t enough room for three cars.”

The wreck occurred slightly past the start-finish line. Cope, Sacks and Petty were battling for seventh place, with Cope on the outside and Sacks in the middle.

Cope’s Chevrolet drifted into Sacks’ Chevy, which went sideways, clipped Petty’s Pontiac and then slid backward into the wall. The Cope and Petty cars also hit the wall.

Much of the track was quickly blocked by wreckage, and drivers in the rear of the tightly bunched field were unable to avoid it.

“I think I must have got hit 25 times,” Allison said.

Sterling Marlin was among the drivers able to dodge the wreckage. “I looked back and it looked like they dropped a bomb back there,” he said.

“I was trying to give Derrike a little room,” said Sacks, who started from the pole but quickly fell off the pace. “Richard was trying to get by, and I couldn’t let off the gas because I had somebody right (behind me). . . .

“We just started bouncing off one another. It was kind of like pinball.”

Cope said he went as high as he could on the banked track after Sacks bumped him in Turns 3 and 4 on the first lap.

“I was right against the wall,” Cope said. “You can’t back off. All those guys are screaming down your throat. Your car can get more out of shape if you get off the gas.”

Petty, whose seventh-place starting position was his best since 1986, said he also did nothing wrong.

“I was in my groove right where I was supposed to be,” Petty said. “I didn’t hit anybody. I didn’t pull in front of anybody and I didn’t turn into anybody. . . . I had nothing to do with it.”