Texas 500
The Texas 500 was run on April 5 in Fort Worth, Texas. The #12 of Jeremy Mayfield won the pole. During this race, journeyman Greg Sacks suffered near-fatal injuries in a lap 137 crash. Replays showed that the car got loose in the corner. Sacks over-corrected, which resulted in the car hitting the wall at about a 50 degree angle. Sacks suffered head injuries and had to be cut of his #98 Thorn Apple Valley Ford. He would not race for the rest of the year at all. After this crash, Sacks only raced sparingly in the ARCA Re/Max Series, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and the NASCAR Nationwide Series. The race was broadcast on CBS.
Top Ten Results
- 6-Mark Martin
- 97-Chad Little
- 77-Robert Pressley
- 42-Joe Nemechek
- 26-Johnny Benson
- 5-Terry Labonte
- 23-Jimmy Spencer
- 18-Bobby Labonte
- 21-Michael Waltrip
- 41-Steve Grissom
Failed to qualify: 13-Jerry Nadeau, 30-Derrike Cope, 35-Todd Bodine, 47-Billy Standridge, 95-Andy Hillenburg
- The green flag was waved by Jim Roper, who won the very first NASCAR Strictly Stock race in 1949.
- On lap 2, there was a multi-car pileup in turn 1 that involved at least 9 cars, including Dale Earnhardt, Ted Musgrave, Darrell Waltrip, John Andretti, Rick Mast, Kenny Wallace, Kevin Lepage, Hut Stricklin and Jeff Gordon. Andretti's car caught fire when his fuel pump broke. This was very similar to the start of the previous year's race.
- Mike Skinner was injured in a hard crash into the wall on lap 252 in the quad-oval. He had actually already been injured at Atlanta earlier in the season in another hard crash, but was hurt enough here that he had to sit out 3 races. Morgan Shepherd, who had relief driven for Skinner at Darlington a couple weeks earlier, drove the car the next 2 races (Martinsville and Talladega, where he finished 11th and 35th (after getting caught up in "The Big One"). Mike Dillon, car owner Richard Childress' nephew, drove the car at California to a 35th place finish.
Read more about this topic: 1998 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
Famous quotes containing the word texas:
“Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.”
—Anonymous. Popular saying.
Dating from World War I—when it was used by U.S. soldiers—or before, the saying was associated with nightclub hostess Texas Quinan in the 1920s. It was the title of a song recorded by Sophie Tucker in 1927, and of a Cole Porter musical in 1929.