NASCAR WCUP: This Time Lucky Coin Works For Steve Park's Roadcourse Effort
16 August 1999
A few minutes before the road course race in Sonoma in May, Pennzoil Monte Carlo crewmember John Furino stooped down on the Sears Point Raceway surface and scooped up a shiny copper penny hoping it would bring the team luck. Unfortunately, that day was one of the most disastrous for the Dale Earnhardt Inc. team as driver Steve Park fell out early after flipping over a tire wall. So on Sunday on the New York road course at Watkins Glen, crewmember Eddie Nawrocki found another shiny penny. Naturally, one crewmember loudly urged him to "throw it back!" But this time the lucky penny wasn't a curse. Hours later Park turned in one of his best performances of his career. The New York native moved from his 39th starting position by using some steady driving and good pit strategy to finish 12th continuing a string of recent success. Although Park never threatened the leaders, his day showed a coming of age for the young driver. "This place is so tough to pass on and as far back as we were starting it would have been tough to move up much higher," said Park as he celebrated with the crew. "This place is a real easy place to get overeager and go off course. So every time you made a pass today you had to make sure not to spin or get off course because if you did that you'd end up about 30th." The weekend didn't begin well for Park. On Friday torrential rain forced NASCAR to make the 49 cars run on grooved wet weather tires. The cars were quite twitchy racing around the hilly circuit with roostertails of water coming off the back of each car. "We had a brand new road course car and after what happened in Sonoma I was a little leery about driving it real hard," Park said. "Throw in the rain and I was pretty nervous about the whole thing Friday morning." The track had dried by the time qualifying started late Friday afternoon and the cars made their one-lap qualifying runs on the normal dry weather tires. Unfortunately, Park's 39th -place effort was a disappointment. "I don't know what really happened," Park said. "We were faster in practice but we will try again tomorrow." The rain returned Saturday and although Park was much faster in early morning practice he wasn't allowed another shot at qualifying. When Sunday's race started, Park never raced with the eventual winner Jeff Gordon, but Park slowly drove up through the field benefiting from two 18-second pit stops. Crew Chief Paul Andrews repeatedly urged Park to remain calm and post a good finish. "This was a tough weekend on Friday and Saturday but we made it all worthwhile on Sunday," said Andrews over the radio. "This was a good finish today." While others were sliding off the track or wrecking, Park kept all four wheels on the asphalt and survived with the respectable finish. Sunday's performance comes on the heels of a 15th-place finish at Indianapolis, an 8th-place finish at Pocono, and a 12th place finish at New Hampshire. "I think you are starting to see some consistency and that is what racing is all about," said Park. "We aren't satisfied, but I think you are going to see better and better finishes throughout the year." Park moved to 24th place in the car owner standings. Park and his teammates return to Michigan this weekend where Park posted a 6th-place finish in June - his career best.