MOTOR RACING IROC AT DAYTONA : NASCAR Drivers Put Home-Track Edge to Good Use

On NASCAR’s premier track, Daytona International Speedway, five NASCAR drivers showed their International Race of Champions competitors Friday how the event should be run.

And NASCAR’s premier driver, Dale Earnhardt, showed his fellow stock car drivers how to win when he came out of the pack off the final turn to win the 1992 IROC opener by little more than the nose of his Dodge Daytona.

Ricky Rudd and Harry Gant were second in a photo finish that the cameras could not separate. IROC President Les Richter said each would be credited with a second-place tie, climaxing the tightest finish in the 61 races of IROC history. Another NASCAR driver, Davey Allison, was fourth.

The first non-stock car finisher in the 40-lap (100 miles) race in identically prepared Daytonas was Hurley Haywood, a long-distance sports car driver competing in his first IROC. Former Indy car champion Al Unser Jr. sixth.

“That was the most fun I ever had in an IROC,” said Earnhardt, who won the 1990 championship. “When I was going for the fourth turn I planned to draft off Rudd, but then Gant and Allison seemed to hook up and spoiled my plans. I thought I was finished, and I just started drifting down low and that allowed us to break free.

“I was really surprised when I saw I had room, so I just went as hard as I could. I couldn’t have planned it any better, but it was no plan. It just happened.”

It was Earnhardt’s second victory in as many days. Thursday he won one of the Twin 125 qualifying races that set the field for Sunday’s Daytona 500. Earnhardt, a five-time Winston Cup champion, will be seeking his first Daytona 500 victory.

Rudd had led eight consecutive laps and took the white flag on the final lap in front of Earnhardt, Allison and Unser. Gant was well back before he and Haywood charged through the pack to challenge the leaders.

“I didn’t really want to be sitting in the lead there (on the final lap),” Rudd said. “It was kind of like the old ‘slingshot’ days when the guy in front was a sitting duck. It was a lot of fun. You never knew where you were going to end up. You could be leading one lap and you might be 10th the next.”

Gant was the surprise. His red Dodge had been spending most of its time far in the rear before he made his late move.

“I was saving the tires, and I thought I was gonna get everybody,” Gant said. “But I didn’t see Dale ducking under me there. I was concentrating on Rudd so much that I let Dale get both of us.”

Earnhardt averaged 182.556 m.p.h., and the lead changed 18 times among five drivers.

The only incident occurred when fire broke out inside the car driven by Scott Pruett, last year’s Daytona IROC winner. When he slowed, he was hit by Pete Halsmer, smashing the front of Halsmer’s car and knocking it out of the race. Pruett climbed out with his helmet blackened with soot, but he was not hurt.

The four-race IROC series will continue May 2 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. For the first time, IROC will be an all-oval series this year, giving even more of an advantage to NASCAR drivers.

Of 61 IROC races since the inaugural in 1979 at Riverside, NASCAR drivers have won 32.