AUTO RACING : Davey Allison’s Stock Is on the Upswing

Even before he won his first Daytona 500 Davey Allison was considered the driver most likely to knock Dale Earnhardt off his pedestal as NASCAR’s nearly perennial Winston Cup champion.

Of course, nothing is decided with 28 races remaining, but Allison did nothing to diminish his chances in the opener.

“It’s way too early to talk about a championship, but I guess we talked about it all winter,” Allison said of his teammates at Robert Yates Racing. “That’s everybody’s goal at the beginning of the year. We have got our best shot at the title this year because we’re off to such a good start.

“The guys on this crew are the greatest I’ve ever been around. Every week, no matter what size track we’re running, I’ve got a good handling car under me with all kinds of horsepower. That gives me all the confidence in the world.”

This weekend, the Winston Cup circuit is at North Carolina Motor Speedway, where Allison won last fall--the first of two races in a row leading into the season-finale at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

“We were worried the offseason might slow down our momentum,” Allison said. “You never know what other guys are going to find in December and January. We fought this thing tooth and nail. The guys worked hard and that has allowed us to pick up right we left off.”

Morgan Shepherd was a surprise second-place finisher in the Daytona 500, making his first ride with the famed Wood Brothers team a memorable one.

“I’m tickled to death to go down to Daytona and have the week we did,” said Shepherd, who took over the seat left vacant when Dale Jarrett jumped to the new team formed by Joe Gibbs.

“You know, I’ve known these guys (the Wood brothers) a long time and it’s not exactly like jumping in a whole new deal because we’ve been friends over the years,” Shepherd added. “And when you work around people long enough, you learn to know ‘em. I’ve driven Thunderbirds for the last few years, so there was nothing new there.

“What attracted me to this (ride) was that these guys have been on their way back. You could see it coming way back in the summer when they won (at Michigan in August), and they’ve beencompetitivein all the races.”

Joe Gibbs, coach of the NFL champion Washington Redskins and a new Winston Cup team owner, knows exactly where he stands on the age-old question: are race car drivers athletes?

“I think they’re very much athletes,” Gibbs said. “It takes hand-eye coordination and guts,” Gibbs said. “You get honed into something, you get into a feel.

“Normally, real good athletes make hard things look easy, and that’s what happens here. You’ve got to be gifted to do this. A lot of people what to race cars, but there’s only a small percentage that can do it. It’s the same way with football. So many want to play, but it takes a certain kind of guy to do it.”

Chris Economaki, longtime motorsports broadcaster and publisher emeritus of the weekly National Speed Sport News, has come up with some amazing numbers regarding the number of current Winston Cup stock cars.

In his much-read column from the week following the Daytona 500, Economaki wrote that the 57 teams entered in the season-opening Winston Cup event have 341 stock cars ready to run this season.

The teams preparing cars for Ernie Irvan, Bill Elliott and Michael Waltrip reportedly have 15 cars apiece--ranging in cost from $60,000 to $80,000 per car--to run the 29-race series contested on 16 tracks, ranging from big ovals, to small ovals to two road courses.