Five-car accident ends Winston Cup practice

Elwood · February 11, 2003

February 11, 2003

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A five-car crash during practice for the Daytona 500 sent three teams scrambling for backup cars to use in Thursday's twin 125-mile qualifying races.

With the cars running in a big pack Tuesday, rookie Jack Sprague, riding between Mike Skinner and Steve Park, suddenly banged off Park. He then slid down the banking into Skinner, who went sideways. Jeff Burton and Elliott Sadler then drove into the melee.

When the wreckage was cleared, the crews of Skinner, Burton and Sadler all had to pull their backups off their haulers to get them ready for the qualifying races. Sprague's crew said the nose of his car could be repaired and Park's had only a little sheet metal damage on the left rear quarterpanel, near the tire.

They will have one opportunity to practice Wednesday.

``To the best of my knowledge, we got ran into by a rookie,'' Skinner said. ``Whether he got pushed down there or not, I don't know.''

Sprague said: ``I was in the middle, Park was on the outside and he didn't stay up and he hit me in the right front, drove me into Skinner and it was all over.''

Park refused to take the blame for starting the accident.

``He bounced off me. I was up by the wall and couldn't go any higher except for the grandstands,'' he said.

Dale Jarrett had the fast time in the practice at 188.494 mph. Skinner was fifth at 188.025, Sprague was 12th at 187.578, Park 19th at 187.149, Burton 25th at 186.939 and Sadler 41st at 186.343.

antig24 · February 11, 2003

I haven't seen the video of the wreck but I heard that Park and Skinner held there line fine and that it was spraques fault.

Elwood · February 11, 2003

I would say that is probably right, from the comments, and I haven't seen it either. BUT Skinner doesn't have much room to run his mouth, I've seen him screw up ALOT, and he has more experience than this guy.

MountaineerTom · February 12, 2003

I seen it. I was watching it on Speedvision today when it happened, and Sprauge REALLY should have looked at the video before he made the comments he did. Park in no way caused that. He was holding his line, as well as Skinner. The only one swerving around was Sprauge, until he hit Skinner.

hogger999 · February 12, 2003

I agree. Sprauge should have watched the tape first.

I think the only person to make an intelligent comment about the whole deal was Jeff Burton.

Skinner has always been an idiot. I can't wait to see some of the rookies put him a couple laps down this year.

How about Waltrip, did he get lucky or what.

Elwood · February 12, 2003

I still haven't got to see the whole thing, Sportscenter only showed the end of it, and I keep missing it on SPEED Channel. My favorite quote though came from Sadler in another article I read......"The 4 car (Skinner) was blending in and I guess the zero didn't see him and just absolutely ran in the side of him," Sadler said of Sprague. "I don't know if he misjudged him or what was going on, but it's a shame to wreck a bunch of good cars on the straightaway. I mean, we're supposed to be professionals and using our heads, and they're out there running into the side of each other on the straightaway. There's not much common sense going on."