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Sunday, April 14, 2002

By The Associated Press

Darrell Waltrip's return to racing ended long before the Advance Auto Parts 250 did yesterday at Martinsville, Va., and Dennis Setzer passed Terry Cook with 43 laps to go and went on to his seventh career victory.

Waltrip, who retired from Winston Cup racing in 2000, lasted only 86 laps as a one-race fill-in for NASCAR truck series driver Stacy Compton before the rear end in his leaking Dodge failed.

Waltrip's spin, caused when Morgan Shepherd bumped him from behind in the first turn of the third lap, proved a harbinger of things to come as the race was slowed 14 times by cautions for a series-record 80 laps.

"I forced between Morgan and another truck," Waltrip said of the bump and spin. "It was early in the race and I thought he'd give me a break. I guess he was carrying too much speed and couldn't get stopped."

The race also ended early for Kevin Harvick, who ran his Chevrolet into the back of Coy Gibbs' Chevy coming out of a restart with 62 laps to go, causing Gibbs to spin and Harvick to be parked by NASCAR.

"I guess they thought I was retaliating," Harvick said.

Waltrip had said beforehand that racing again was an opportunity to get information he can use as a Winston Cup commentator on Fox television, but he said after being eliminated that he'd had much higher hopes.

"I was going to win this race. We had the best truck," he said.

He never got a chance to prove it, while Setzer proved it all day.

"I had a fun time today. This is the funnest track, I think, on the Craftsman Truck Series," Setzer said after coming from behind and becoming only the second provisional starter to win in the 8-year-old series.

Setzer had qualified fifth but was dropped to 33rd on the starting grid because of a technical problem. He raced through the field to get into the top 10 within about 50 laps, then waited for a chance to lead.

Other races:

San Marino Grand Prix: World champion Michael Schumacher won the pole position in record time for the race in Imola, Italy, setting up an all-Ferrari front row for the Formula One race today. Schumacher edged Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello for the 45th pole of his career. Schumacher covered the 3.065-mile Imola circuit in 1 minute, 21.091 seconds. He beat by nearly two seconds the mark set by David Coulthard in last year's qualifying.

O'Reilly Spring Nationals: Whit Bazemore earned the top position in NHRA Funny Car competition after qualifying at Baytown, Texas. He covered a quarter-mile Friday at Houston Raceway Park in 4.8 seconds at 318.92 mph, and the time held up yesterday.