Ernie Irvan isn't ready to assume the title of NASCAR's top road racer, even though two of his four career victories have come on road courses.
"I don't really know how to road race," Irvan said Sunday after overcoming a black flag for jumping the start to win the Save Mart 300 at Sears Point International Raceway. "I just get the job done."Irvan, who started alongside top-qualifier Ricky Rudd, broke a NASCAR rule which says you can't pass the starting line ahead of the pole-sitter after the green flag falls.
NASCAR officials immediately threw the black flag forcing Irvan into the pits for a stop-and-go penalty. When he emerged from the pits, he was dead-last.
Irvan said later he had to ask his pit crew what he had done wrong.
"I never really got mad," Irvan said of being black-flagged. "It was just one of those things. There's nothing you can do about it.
"I guess I'm just going to have to start starting back there," he said after winning the 187-mile race around the 13-turn, 2.52-mile course. "Obviously I'm qualifying too good."
Irvan said he never gave up and never got down on himself despite the starting line disaster.
"I thought after the start I had a good chance as long as I got some breaks," he said. "I pushed it as hard as I could go without making a mistake."
And he gave a year's experience some of the credit.
"If this had happened last year I probably wouldn't have been able to come back from it," said Irvan, whose other road course victory came last year at Watkins Glen.
After a series of fortuitous pit stops, a conveniently timed caution period and some hard driving, Irvan finally passed Terry Labonte's Oldsmobile in the turn 11 hairpin on lap 67.
"I'm happy that we ran as good as we did and finished as well as we did," Labonte said. "It was a real struggle fo us this weekend because it was a brand new car, we didn't get to test it and we didn't get much practice time."
Mark Martin was third in a Ford. Rudd was fourth in a Chevrolet, and Bill Elliott came fifth in another Ford.
Dale Earnhardt finished sixth in a Chevrolet, Rusty Wallace was seventh in a Pontiac, Darrell Waltrip was eighth in a Chevrolet, Ken Schrader put his Chevrolet in ninth place and Geoff Bodine rounded out the top 10 in a Ford.
It was a remarkably clean race - there were only three caution periods covering a total of eight laps.
Irvan's winning average speed was 81.412 mph, a race record. The time of the race was 2.17:25, and Irvan's margin of victory was 3.19 seconds.
Davey Allison, who had a trouble-filled day and finished 28th, retained his lead in the Winston Cup standings with 1,773 points. Earnhardt moved into second place with 1,745 points.
Elliott is third with 1,742 and Harry Gant, who finished 17th in an Oldsmobile, fell to fourth with 1,494.
Irvan's victory left him in 10th place with 1,488. He earned $61,810.