AUTO RACING : NASCAR Drivers Shudder at ‘Midnight’

When “Midnight” rolls around on NASCAR’s Winston Cup circuit, there’s a collective shudder among many competitors.

That’s the nickname for Rusty Wallace’s favorite car. It used to be a Pontiac Grand Prix, but the Ronnie Hopkins-built chassis has found new life this season with Ford Thunderbird sheet metal and a Ford engine.

When Wallace had a tire failure and hit the wall two weeks ago at Darlington, it marked only the second time that Midnight has finished out of the top five in 21 races in which he has driven it.

In the Darlington event, Wallace started eighth and led five times for 56 laps before hitting the third-turn wall. The car spent 75 laps in the garage area before Wallace was able to return to action, completing 218 of 293 laps and finishing 33rd.

“The team did a great job in getting me back out there,” said Wallace, the 1993 Winston Cup runner-up to Dale Earnhardt. “Most teams would have surveyed the damage and loaded the car into the trailer.

“We picked up at least four spots by doing what we did. Those points gained could prove super important to us when November rolls around. We take some consolation in knowing how strong of a race car we had--even after the crash.”

The car was sent out Hopkins for quick repairs and returned to the Penske shop by that Tuesday to be prepared for this Sunday’s race on the half-mile oval at Bristol, Tenn.

This will be the first of three straight weeks of short-track action for the Winston Cup cars, and Wallace feels good about that after finishing no worse than second--with five victories--in the last nine races on tracks shorter than one mile.

In the race last month at Richmond, a three-quarter-mile oval, Wallace began the short track season with a runner-up finish to Ernie Irvan.

Wallace is 13th in series points, trailing leader Irvan by a substantial 300 after the first five races of the season.

“We’re running a little bit behind of where I’d hopes to be and where I thought we’d be, as far as the points and the statistics go. But it certainly isn’t because of any shortcomings within our operation or any lack of performance,” said Wallace, who won earlier this season at Rockingham.

“We’ve had a car capable of winning all five races so far, so we can’t ask for anything more out of the equipment. We’ve had the car to beat and then have tires blown, side windows break out--freaky deals. . . . There’s 26 more races filled with opportunity, plenty of time to put the necessary numbers on the board.”

THE LAST THREE spring races at Bristol International Raceway have been won from the pole, as have four of the last six races on the half-mile, high-banked oval.

That puts the Unocal 76 Challenge bonus, which has grown to $83,600, in serious jeopardy for Sunday’s Food City 500. The money goes to any driver winning from the pole position and builds at $7,600 per race until it is won.

The last driver to take the prize was Ernie Irvan, when he won from the pole at Martinsville, Va., last September.

KEN SCHRADER SAYS Indy-car veteran Gary Bettenhausen, who once finished second in the Indianapolis 500, will drive one of his Winston Cup Chevrolets on Aug. 6 in the inaugural Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Schrader’s Busch Grand National team will pit the car at Indy and Bettenhausen plans to test on the 2.5-mile speedway oval in June and July.

Meanwhile, Schrader tried out Bettenhausen’s Indy car at the speedway last month.

“I made one lap at about 165 (m.p.h.) and the second lap was about 180,” Schrader said. “Then I parked it, because I was having too much fun. I didn’t need to be going that fast or having that much fun.”