Hamilton’s Plans Are Reel Big Despite Frustration at Talladega

Bobby Hamilton earned his racing spurs driving a “movie car” in Paramount’s “Days of Thunder,” and his Winston Cup car is sponsored by Kodak, so it shouldn’t be surprising that he’s preparing for Sunday’s California 500 in Fontana by watching film.

“This week, I’ll spend most of my time studying a tape of last year’s California race,” Hamilton said after surviving Sunday’s 20-car crash at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama. “I have tapes of the Winston Cup race last June and the Busch race last October. . . .

“I’ve never watched race tapes and not learned something. For Talladega last week, I watched tapes from both races last year and a couple of years before that. If you watch and watch, if you really study the things, there is a lot you can learn.”

All that watching, though, didn’t help at Talladega when Ward Burton tapped Dale Earnhardt, sending Earnhardt into Bill Elliott and triggering the biggest pileup in Winston Cup racing this season. Hamilton was one of the fortunate few able to continue, but damage to his Morgan-McClure Chevrolet forced him to retire early and accept a 30th-place finish in the DieHard 500.

Bobby Labonte won in Joe Gibbs’ Pontiac, edging Jimmy Spencer, Dale Jarrett, Terry Labonte and Jeff Gordon, all of whom were ahead of the accident.

“The results weren’t exactly what we were hoping for, especially after winning the race at Martinsville the week before,” Hamilton said. “But we felt we left Talladega with a pretty good race car, or what was left of a pretty good race car.

“We had worked hard all weekend and got a little better . . . every time we went out. The last practice Saturday left us with a really good car, and we were pretty excited about starting the race.

“One of the things about this sport is, you don’t have time to get too happy or to get too down. All you can do is keep on going. We won at Martinsville and it was great. We high-fived and celebrated and hugged each other and smiled a lot. We had part of an afternoon for that and then it was time to get ready for Talladega.

“After the disappointment Sunday we kicked tires and mumbled a lot, but we had to start getting ready for California. It’s a blessing, and I guess a curse in the good times, that there just isn’t a whole lot of time between races to have much emotion at all. You just can’t afford to waste time celebrating or crying.”

Hamilton, who drove a Pontiac for Richard Petty’s team in last year’s California 500, finished 23rd. During the winter he switched to Larry McClure’s Chevy team, his fourth since becoming a Winston Cup regular in 1991, the year he was rookie of the year.

The tow-head from Nashville got into NASCAR through a side door. When Rick Hendrick was seeking drivers to pilot movie cars anonymously in “Days of Thunder,” Darrell Waltrip recommended Hamilton. Hamilton had beaten Waltrip in a special race at Nashville Speedway in 1988.

Martinsville was Hamilton’s third Winston Cup victory. He scored his first at Phoenix in 1996 and won again in 1997 at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham.

“Preparation is pretty much a full-time thing these days,” he said. “Normally, I’ll really watch the cars that run well at certain tracks, so that means I’ll spend a lot of time watching [Jeff] Gordon and [Terry] Labonte. They were the first two finishers last year. I’ll watch the lines they take around the track, the things they do.

“I’ll especially watch the nose and front wheels. That tells you a lot about how the car is doing and what it’s doing. I guess it’s no different than coaches scouting a football game, except that I’m not really trying to figure out what the competition is doing. I want to compare two things, what I was doing in the 43 car last year and what the 4 car [Hamilton’s car this year] was doing last year [driven by Sterling Marlin].

“I can take the best from both, and the best from Gordon and Labonte, and maybe it will help us over the weekend.”

Hamilton and the rest of NASCAR’s traveling circus will move into California Speedway on Friday for practice and qualifying for the first 25 positions in Sunday’s race. The rest of the 43-car field will qualify Saturday.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

California 500 Schedule

* Thursday: IROC practice, 8 a.m., noon and 4 p.m.; Winston West practice, 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., qualifying, 3 p.m. for positions 1-25.

* Friday: Winston West practice, 8:30 a.m., qualifying, noon, for positions 26-38; Winston Cup practice, 9:30 a.m., qualifying, 1 p.m., for positions 1-25.

* Saturday: Winston Cup practice, 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., qualifying, 11 a.m., for positions 26-36; Auto Club 200 Winston West race (100 laps), noon; Pontiac True Value IROC race (50 laps), 2:30 p.m.

* Sunday: California 500 (250 laps), 12:30 p.m.