Allison Will Miss Race for the ‘Party’

For the first time since 1959, the year the Daytona 500 was first held, three-time winner Bobby Allison will not be here. He and his wife, Judy, will be in Ames, Okla., for the “Ultimate Daytona 500 House Party” for John Sattler, who won the honor in a promotion by NASCAR.

“I hate to miss the 500 live but I’ve got a feeling Judy and I are going to have a lot of fun watching it on NBC television,” said Allison, winner of the 1983 Winston Cup championship as well as the 1978, 1982 and 1988 Daytona 500s. “I haven’t met [Sattler] yet but I understand he’s a short-track racer, so I certainly won’t have any trouble fitting in with him and his crowd.”

Sattler, who has raced stock cars on a half-mile dirt oval in Enid, Okla., said, “Me, my wife and my grandfather have all raced, so having this party with Bobby Allison will be truly memorable.”

*

Indy Racing League driver Scott Sharp and World of Outlaws sprint car champion Danny Lasoski will start on the front row in Friday’s International Race of Champions. The line up for the 12 drivers from different racing series was conducted by draw.

*

Bill Elliott’s Dodge Intrepid was the fastest Winston Cup car in Wednesday’s final practice for today’s Gatorade Twin 125s, but the two-time Daytona 500 winner downplayed the results.

“That time really didn’t mean anything,” he said. “We weren’t really the fastest. We were just in between two drafts. That’s the only reason we were up there.”

Felix Sabates, co-owner with Chip Ganassi of Dodges driven by Sterling Marlin and Jimmy Spencer, was even more pessimistic.

“If a Dodge wins tomorrow, it’s because all of the other cars in the race will wreck and fall out,” Sabates said. “We’ve got no chance with that extra spoiler.”

Dodge owners are upset that Ford received a quarter-inch reduction in the height of its rear spoiler to help maintain parity among the four NASCAR manufacturers--Ford, Chevrolet, Pontiac and Dodge. When Dodge returned to Winston Cup racing last year, the templates on the Intrepid model were patterned after the Ford Taurus.

*

Dave Marcis, who has announced that Sunday’s 500 will be his final race, started his career with the Daytona 500 in 1968.

“It doesn’t seem like that many years ago when you stop and think about it,” he said.

“But coming down here with a 1966 Chevrolet with a 427 cubic inch big block engine was a big handful. There was a lot of horsepower there. We didn’t have all those rear spoilers and we didn’t have the good tires. They were narrower and they had tread on them. It was simpler, but it was a hell of a handful.”

Marcis will start today in a new Chevrolet Monte Carlo, thanks to help from Childress Racing, for whom he does test driving.

*

Michael Waltrip is the defending champion in the Daytona 500, but he says it won’t mean a thing when the green flag flies Sunday.

“It didn’t even enter my mind [being defending champion] until I got here and now I’ve heard it a couple of times,” said Waltrip, who drives for Dale Earnhardt, Inc. “It just puts an extra bounce in your step. I’m happy to hear that. The defending champ gig is just a little bonus.”

*

Rain halted qualifying for Saturday’s Busch Grand National race late Wednesday and NASCAR officials said it would be completed this morning before the Gatorade Twin 125s.