AUTO RACING : Davey Allison’s NASCAR Dominance Nearly Total

To say that Davey Allison has had a good start to the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup stock car season would be something of an understatement.

Most racing fans are aware that the 31-year-old son of longtime stock car great Bobby Allison has won three of the first nine races this year, including the Daytona 500 and Winston 500, and is leading the standings by 67 points over four-time winner Bill Elliott.

But the domination by Allison, who also has a second place finish and a trio of fourths, is even more apparent when you check some other statistics.

His Texaco-Havoline Ford Thunderbird have led in eight of the nine races, a total of 26 times and for 1,347.81 of a possible 3,580.41 miles.

Elliott is next, having led in six of nine races for a total of 16 times and 795.93 miles.

Fords, which have won all nine races, have led 2,673 of a possible 3,375 laps. Chevrolet, which entered the season with an unprecedented nine straight NASCAR manufacturers’ championships, is second, having led 407 laps.

Michael Kranefuss, director of Ford’s Special Vehicle Operations, which is the company’s motorsports division, said, “This is absolutely unbelievable. But you know all through all these races, you always have a good feeling because there are two, three, four Fords there that at any given time during the race are running well.”

Ford currently leads the manufacturers’ standings with 81 points, followed by Oldsmobile with 44, Chevrolet with 40 and Pontiac 33.

The problem that caused a rash of broken axles two weeks ago at Martinsville Speedway did not rear its ugly head at Talladega last weekend.

Part of the reason was that the NASCAR stock cars don’t put as much pressure on the rear axle on the longer, faster Talladega oval. But other thing is that everybody learned a lesson from Martinsville, where several of the best cars wound up limping home well back in the pack because of axle failures.

“We didn’t run as much camber (the angle between the tires and the axle),” said Ernie Irvan, who was one of the drivers who broke an axle while leading the Martinsville race. “It guess what we ran at Martinsville was a little bit too much. To make it work is very complicated. Les Richter (NASCAR vice president of competition) said they are going to make it where you don’t run that much camber.”

At Talladega, NASCAR officials informed the teams that a new rule will be in effect on camber beginning with next weekend’s running of The Winston and the Winston Open at Charlotte Speedway.

Rear camber will be limited to a maximum of 1.8 degrees. Gary Nelson, the Winston Cup technical director, said no new drive plates or other parts have been approved for use in setting up the camber angle, but that NASCAR would “keep an open mind” about new parts for future use.

Nelson said the rule change is in response to calls from car owners and teams to keep down the escalating costs in purchasing a variety of rear end housings for every car.

Last year at this time, one of the big stories out of Indianapolis was that there were not enough of the dominating Chevrolet Indy V8 engines to go around.

Teams and drivers without the Chevy powerplant were complaining that the teams with it had an unfair advantage and that Chevy and engine manufacturer Ilmor Engineering were playing favorites in selling the program.

This month, however, there seem to be plenty of Chevys to go around.

Marlboro Team Penske has given its drivers, Rick Mears, Emerson Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy, the developmental Chevy Indy V8-B engines, while nearly 20 other drivers, including many of the big rookie crop, are getting the benefit of the Chevy-A.

Paul Morgan, co-founder of Ilmor and one of four directors of the company along with partner Mario Illien, Penske Racing and General Motors, said there is a good reason why so many more Chevys are available this year.

“We have built a business plan to reach this level,” Morgan said. “We now have the capability to machine the required parts in the necessary quantities to support the effort of this size.

“We absolutely will not compromise the quality or integrity of the engine by stretching too thin. Last year, we could not support additional teams. This year we can.”

Boston native Brian Bonner, a veteran road racer, has never driven a race car on an oval track until he started the first phase of his rookie test at the Indianapolis Motor speedway.

His only previous open-wheel experience had been in parts of three seasons of the Barber-Saab series and three Indy Lights races.

“I thought it would be a lot harder for me than it was,” Bonner said. “Dale (car owner Dale Coyne) took me out on the track in the pace car before the test. I was more scared in the pace car than I was in the race car. Once I got into the car, I was comfortable. That’s my office.

“But it was very emotional when I walked out onto the track and looked around before the rookie test. The place is enormous and intimidating. You can just picture all the history that has occurred during the previous 75 Indy 500s and the caliber of drivers that have competed here.

“But, as a driver, you must remain level-headed about the experience.”