Monday, March 17, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Dick Trickle had the big-money sponsorship and the crowd on his side, but fate was with Jeff Green.
Green, the unheralded Busch Series driver with no sponsor on his No. 8 Diamond Ridge Motorsports Chevrolet, passed the veteran Trickle with 15 laps remaining in the 200-lap race and held on win the NASCAR Busch Series Las Vegas 300 before a crowd estimated at 52,000 Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
"It's one of those weeks that you couldn't make something go wrong," said Green, who also captured the pole for the first Busch Series race held west of the Mississippi River.
Green earned $89,250 for the victory -- the second-largest amount ever won by a driver in the 16-year history of the Busch Series. Trickle, the uncle of local racer Chris Trickle and the clear crowd favorite Sunday, was denied his first Busch Series win, but earned $48,875 for second place.
Green, who averaged 114.673 mph during the accident-riddled race, had to avoid a pair of mishaps in the final 75 laps to capture his first series win in his 100th start. Green first narrowly missed a five-car pileup in turn four on lap 122, then was at the tail end of a two-car incident in turn two on lap 140.
"You don't want to know (how close I was)," Green said of the first incident, which was triggered by Winston Cup regular Mike Wallace. "I was right there in the middle of it and I drove to the left, I drove to the right, I drove back to the left -- I had to zigzag through there, still at 120 mph ... it was meant to be today."
The second incident involved Elliott Sadler and Jerry Robertson in turn two.
"I was right behind them and I couldn't see nothing but smoke and I just kind of thought where I needed to be and all of a sudden it cleared it and I was free," Green said of the spinning cars. "It was the right time, the right place ... it was just our day."
Green, who led the race five times for 71 laps, snatched the lead away from Trickle on lap 186 after Trickle's Dura-Lube Chevrolet developed handling problems. Trickle had led laps 171-185 after a strong run from the 23rd starting position.
"We'd been loose getting in and a little tight coming off the corners," Trickle said. "It started chattering coming off and it went away from me a little bit. We were good for a while ... but there was one car out there that was better."
Green said he felt that if he could stay within striking distance of race leaders Trickle and Todd Bodine, he believed he had a chance to overtake the front-runners.
"It was just a great setup on the car," Green said. "We never gave up anything and all those other guys probably gave up a little bit. I knew running third there that if I could just keep some pressure on them, they would probably give up, I'd get a line and I could pass them.
"The Goodyear tires were awesome today and I reward a lot of this win to them because we just had to come in to get fuel -- we didn't have to get tires. We changed them one time during the race."
Like Trickle, Bodine battled handling problems with his Stanley Tools Pontiac -- which he drove to a third-place finish.
"It was tight all day," said Bodine, who extended his lead in the series points race to 35 over Phil Parsons.
"But we ran up front all day, the car's in one piece and we're still in the points lead. Not a bad day."
Winston Cup regular Michael Waltrip finished fourth and was followed by Tim Steele, who took fifth despite losing his power steering early in the race. Steele was taking his first spin behind the wheel of the Phoenix Construction Company Monte Carlo after replacing Jeff Purvis on an interim basis late last week.
"That really made for a long day," said an exhausted Steele, the 1996 ARCA champion. "I was planning on giving 100 percent today but I think I ended giving about 150 percent after the power steering went out.
"I've got nothing on my schedule for next week at Darlington right now -- maybe I'll be in the car and maybe I won't, we'll just have to wait and see. Maybe this run today will open the door for some opportunities. This is a tough series, and to come out with a top-five finish the first time in the car is really exciting."
It was a competitive race, featuring 25 lead changes among 12 drivers. Forty-seven of the 200 laps were run under caution as the race was slowed by eight yellow flags -- six for accidents. No injuries were reported.
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