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No quick fix allowed for Marlin

The veteran tries repairs under a red flag. He takes his punishment in stride.

By GREG AUMAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 18, 2002

DAYTONA BEACH -- Having avoided an 18-car wreck, led for 78 laps and traded paint with Jeff Gordon, Sterling Marlin lost the lead with five laps left at Sunday's Daytona 500 -- while his car was standing still.

Leading the field and waiting for a restart on the backstretch while the race was under a red flag, Marlin hopped out of his No. 40 Dodge Intrepid and tried to pull the fender away from his right front tire, a move that cost him a shot at the checkered flag.

Working on a car during a red flag is against NASCAR's rules, and Marlin's car was penalized 'to the end of the longest line," far enough that even with a late rally, he finished a disappointing eighth.

"I didn't know it was a rule," Marlin said of his ad-lib maintenance. "I saw (Dale) Earnhardt clean his windshield one time at Richmond, so I thought it'd be a good idea to pull the fender off the tire, but it made us go to the rear. I must not have read the rulebook."

Just minutes earlier at the beginning of a restart, Marlin appeared to have made another transgression by bumping Jeff Gordon while below the track's yellow line, causing Gordon to spin out and triggering the race's ninth caution flag. NASCAR didn't penalize Marlin for that move.

"I tried to get a run on Jeff, and as soon as I got across the line, I got up in his quarterpanel," said Marlin, whose first two Winston Cup victories came at Daytona in 1994 and '95. "He tried to block me. If I was in his shoes, I'd probably do the same thing. We hooked bumpers and he spun out and I went on."

Gordon, who was penalized on the same restart for making an early pit stop, said he shouldn't have forced the issue with Marlin when their cars were so close.

"Me and Sterling knew how important that last restart was, and he got a jump on me," said Gordon, who finished ninth. "I tried to block him and messed up both of our days."

What got Marlin in trouble, however, was getting out of his car during the red flag, a move that Gordon took more serious objection to: "That ain't right, you can't do that -- I don't know what his theory was on the stupid restart."

Marlin's crew chief, Lee McCall, said he and Marlin had discussed the damaged fender and thought it was a risk, even with only five laps remaining.

"It was a safety precaution," he said. 'We didn't want to go out and blow a tire and take out half the field."

Even in retrospect, the 44-year-old said it was a gamble he was willing to take to better his chances at Daytona's $1.3-million purse.

"It pays a million three to win, so you do a lot of things for a million three," he said. "I thought it was okay. I don't guess it was. It's a little disappointing. We had a good car, we raced hard. We'll come back next week."

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