Monday, March 17, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
As a grizzled veteran, 55-year-old Dick Trickle will be the first to tell you of the immense concentration it takes to drive a race car.
He also was the first to admit he had lapses in his concentration during Sunday's NASCAR Busch Series Las Vegas 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
During more than one trip around the 1.5-mile superspeedway, Trickle said he thoughts wandered to his critically wounded nephew, local racer Chris Trickle, who remains comatose as the result of a shooting incident last month.
"A couple of times during the race, I think I was running seventh one time and I got to fourth, I said to myself, 'Chris ... win, lose or draw I'm doing the best I can do in this car for you,'" Trickle said after his second-place finish. "It was a little sentimental there because he was a driver and I'm a driver and I'm here in his hometown (and) I'm going to do the best job I can do."
His best wasn't good enough to overcome a poor-handling Dura-Lube Chevrolet in the closing moments of Sunday's race -- much to the dismay of the estimated 52,000 fans who were pulling loudly for Trickle. After a strong run that included a charge to the lead (which he held for 15 laps), Trickle saw Jeff Green wrest the lead from him on lap 186 of 200.
Trickle said he was aware that the crowd was pulling for him.
"One of the other pit crews hollered over to me and said, 'Trickle, you're a local hero,'" Trickle said. "Because of (nephew Chris and brother Chuck), I think I am kind of a local hero because I'm related to the family that lives in Las Vegas so somehow I have a tie here.
"I think I do have some local respect because they kind of consider me their man in this league because of the other Trickles (who are) racing."
Trickle said it would have been a special moment to win his first Busch Series race in Las Vegas.
"Being the inaugural (Busch Series) race in Las Vegas and with Chris being from here and Chuck, my brother, living here ... it would have been special," he said.
Instead, the special weekend belonged to Green, who passed Trickle on lap 186 had held on for his first Busch Series victory in 100 starts.
"The (number) 8 car was fast all week, sat on the pole, and he just had it dialed in today," Trickle said of the 34-year-old Green. "Everybody has their great weekends and he had one. If we had been that good, we would have won the race because we beat the rest of the field and that's a pretty tough field.
"We were close, we had a really good car today, it just happened to be that this weekend, there was one car that was better."
ote "I think I do have some local respect because they kind of consider me their man in this league because of the other Trickles (who are) racing." Dick Trickle
archive
