AUTO RACING : Exciting Race Looms for NASCAR Title

This year’s NASCAR manufacturers’ championship may well wind up the most interesting run ever.

Despite the fact that teams running Ford Thunderbirds outnumber the Chevrolet Lumina operations by 2-1 in some Winston Cup events, after 12 races the championship is deadlocked at 90 points apiece.

Each make has six victories so far, with four different drivers giving Chevy its wins and Ford getting checkered flags only from series point leader Ernie Irvan and Rusty Wallace.

Of the 483 starting positions in the first dozen races this season, Ford drivers outnumber Chevrolet pilots 265-162. Pontiac, which has yet to win and is a distant third in the standings, has 56 total starts.

Chevrolet is bidding for its 11th championship in the past 12 seasons and second in a row. Chevy has won 18 of the 22 titles since NASCAR’s modern era began in 1972 -- the year the schedule was trimmed to 31 or fewer events per season.

During that period, Chevrolets have won 274 of 662 races, a .414 winning percentage. Ford has won 135 times (.204).

If a recent pattern prevails, a Chevy driver will win today’s race at Pocono. The two makes have taken turns in the past six events, with Wallace giving Ford a victory last Sunday at Dover, Del.

A LITTLE cooperation between friendly enemies can go a long way.

Rusty Wallace and Ernie Irvan, who are not teammates, definitely worked as a team last Sunday at Dover Downs International Speedway.

When it was obvious to Wallace that either he or Irvan probably would win the Budweiser 500, he decided cooperation was essential.

Wallace radioed to his crew to send someone down to Irvan’s pit to arrange a friendly draft that would save both cars until it was time to decide the outcome.

“Ernie pulled up alongside me and gave me the thumbs up,� Wallace said after winning. “Away we went.�

The fans certainly didn’t lose in the deal. With both cars fairly fresh near the end of the long, tough race, Wallace and Irvan battled hard, exchanging the lead four times in five laps.

BOB LATFORD, publisher of the weekly “The Inside Line� Winston Cup newsletter, says Pocono International Raceway, with its three distinct turns on a 2.5-mile tri-oval, “was apparently designed by committee.�

Some teams certainly must believe that, since Pocono, the site of Sunday’s UAW-GM Teamwork 500, is probably the most unusual track on NASCAR’s top circuit.

The first turn is banked 14 degrees, the second -- or tunnel -- turn is 8 degrees, while the third turn is a relatively flat 6 degrees.

Each of the turns also is built on a different radius and the connecting straights are all different, too.

The frontstretch is the longest at 3,740 feet. The Long Pond straight, connecting turns one and two, is 3,055 feet, while the North Straight, between turns two and three, is just 1,780 feet.

This is the only superspeedway -- tracks one mile or longer -- on which drivers shift gears other than on restarts or when pitting. The track is so difficult to set up for that many of the teams have opted to use Jericho transmissions that allow the driver to shift without using the clutch.

The Pocono track surface also remains one of the roughest on the circuit.

“If you can’t find a real good compromise to get you through all three turns, Sunday is a very, very long day,� said Kyle Petty, the defending race champion.

WHEN 22-YEAR-OLD wunderkind Jeff Gordon won at Charlotte last month, he became the 144th different race winner since NASCAR was formed in 1949. Gordon is just the 43rd driver to win a race since the series began its modern era in 1972.

The youngster joins Sterling Marlin, the Daytona 500 winner, as new winners in 1994. It had been more than two years -- Dale Jarrett at Michigan in August 1991 -- since there was a first-time winner on the stock car circuit.

THERE HAVE BEEN six different winners so far this season, with series leader Ernie Irvan, runner-up and defending champion Dale Earnhardt and Rusty Wallace each winning three times.

The other victories have gone to Jeff Gordon, Sterling Marlin and Terry Labonte.

For Labonte, the victory -- his first since 1989 -- was very gratifying. But the win in April at North Wilkesoro has been one of the few high points of the season for the former Winston Cup champion.

During a six-week stretch following the team’s victory, Labonte had some unusually bad luck.

For three consecutive events, the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was damaged in on-track incidents initiated by other cars. In two of those events -- Talladega and Sears Point -- Labonte was eliminated while running in the top 10.

Things haven’t gotten much better since, with Labonte falling from seventh in the points following his win to 15th.

“I’m not complaining because we’ve already won a race and, as competitive as it’s gotten, we’re one of the few teams that can say that. But we’ve been pretty good almost everywhere we’ve been this season, and to not be able to put good finishes with good runs is tough, maybe more so on the crew than on the driver.�

THE TITLE sponsorship of today’s race at Pocono is a product of the UAW-GM Human Resource Center in Auburn Hills, Mich.

The center is used by the United Auto Workers’ International Union and General Motors Corp., to developed and administer joint education and training activities.

Almost 16,000 UAW-GM workers live or work within a 200-mile radius of Pocono International Raceway in Long Pond, Pa., including facilities in Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia.

The new corporate involvement will also include a UAW-GM Teammwork Award of Excellence to be presented to the crew-driver-car combination best displaying teammwork during each Winston Cup event. A year-end award also will be presented to the team with the best overall performance during the 1994 season.