New rule to be tested in rain-delayed Primestar 500

Monday, March 9, 1998 | 11:19 a.m.

After Ford's Tauruses took 13 of the top 14 positions in last week at the Las Vegas 400, the sanctioning body stepped in and shaved a quarter-inch from the rear spoiler of the new race model.

The new rule got its first race test today when the rain-delayed Primestar 500 took the green flag at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The race was postponed Sunday by a nearly day-long rain.

The Taurus is the replacement for the discontinued Thunderbird, and is showing immediate strength despite a relatively short development period.

Actually, NASCAR took away some aerodynamics from its two leading makes after the first race this season. The so-called Five and Five rule, which cut all the rear spoilers and front air dams of the Fords and Chevrolet Monte Carlos to 5 inches, is still being called that, despite the more recent revision of the rule for the Tauruses.

"I don't expect this to be the last change," Wallace said. "I think they're going to have to keep adjusting every race and see what's going on. If they want to change it around a bit more, I wouldn't be surprised if this next time they give Chevy a little bit, instead of taking more away from us."

Most of the Ford teams have been griping about the changes. Wallace's Team Penske South has not been among them.

"I think it's a lot more fun to drive the car under the Five and Five Rule," he said.

It has slowed the cars down perhaps 4-5 mph.

"Before, everybody was just running flat out fast," Wallace explained. "It's a comfortable feeling, it doesn't bother you running the speed, but there wasn't much difference between the cars, so you couldn't pass a guy real easy.

"Now, with the Five and Five, I think they'll be up a lane or working the top lane a little bit better and things will happen different and allow passing to be better."

The 1.54-mile oval, which was reconfigured and made considerably faster prior to last November's race, is still fast enough to be dangerous.

On Friday, before the rains came to wash out all the scheduled weekend activities, three drivers were injured in separate crashes.

Steve Park, a highly touted Winston Cup rookie, wound up in Georgia Baptist Hospital with fractures to his right thigh, left shoulder blade and collarbone and two broken teeth after crashing during the opening practice.

It appeared a broken suspension piece sent his Chevrolet hurtling into the fourth turn wall at close to 190 mph.

Later in the day, two multicar crashes during a caution-filled ARCA race sent drivers Bob Kelly and Mark Thompson to the hospital with an assortment of injuries, including concussions, broken bones and a collapsed lung for Kelly.

None of the three was in a life-threatening situation, but it's obvious the Atlanta track can be hazardous.

"The problem is, when something does happen, instead of running 180, like this place used to be, you're running 190-plus," said Bill Elliott, like Wallace a former Winston Cup champion. "As far as speed, I'd say you're marginal here. I feel like you're getting to the point that maybe we need to do something.

"But what are we going to do? You go to every team in this garage area and somebody's going to tell you something different. I don't have the answer."

NASCAR requires the teams use carburetor restrictor plates to slow the cars at Daytona and Talladega, the two fastest ovals on the circuit. But speeds keep climbing at non-restricted tracks like Atlanta, Charlotte and Michigan, too.

It appears that NASCAR will keep working with the aerodynamics to get the cars down to a speed everyone is comfortable with.

"I think the days when we were running wide open around this race track are over," Dale Jarrett said. "I don't think you're going to do that again, thank goodness. I think it's a race track that will see better racing because of the rule changes."

The rain also forced the indefinite postponement of the Stihl 300 Busch Grand National race. It was rained out Saturday, rescheduled for today, but was bumped by the Winston Cup race.