It's not a sight you often see at a
NASCAR Winston Cup race - Jeff Gordon's race hauler pulling out of the
garage area while the event is still in progress. The scene was played out
in the Primestar 500 after the three-time Winston Cup champion crashed
hard in turn four on lap 69. Gordon wasn't the only high-profile
driver to put a nick in the retaining wall during the event. He
was joined in the unfortunate hit parade by Mark, Mike Skinner
and others.
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The problem - the right front tire blowing
out - was apparently self-inflicted as drivers, crew chiefs and owners
admitted they were running kooky camber settings or using tires with
inadequate tire pressure. "It's one of the tools that you use and
sometimes it hits you, like when you hit your thumb with the hammer."
said Robin Pemberton, Rusty Wallace's crew chief. Wallace dodged the
bullet and didn't have tire problems and finished fourth.
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Mark's Ford spent time behind the wall
for repairs after his brush with the turn-one wall on lap 216. Although
he led seven times for 63 laps, he wound up 34th and dropped to
sixth in the standings. "I guess we were doing something wrong,"
said Mark's crew chief Jimmy Fennig. "Maybe we had too much camber
in the front of that car. I don't know". "We're probably all doing
the same thing and that was to get every little thing out of the race car
that we could have," Fennig added.
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