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Derrike Cope Finds His Field of Dreamsby Larry Guest
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| DAYTONA BEACH -- As Daytona 500
preparations wind down to a frantic grope for those last few hooves of horsepower, an
emerging sleeper to watch this week is a former baseball catcher - a huggable teddy bear
whose most cherished trophy is a framed piece of scrap metal he named "The Culprit.'' Hanging on his office wall back home, it's a fateful chunk of bellhousing that blew off somebody's engine and helped him win the 1990 Daytona 500 - the opening race in his first full year of running NASCAR's elite Winston Cup circuit. In the years since that startling breakthrough, Derrike Cope, 39, hardly has been a factor in Good Ol' Boy racing, known mostly as a pleasant sort with a low golf handicap and an even lower chance of challenging the certified hotshots up there in the lead draft. Cope defies the NASCAR mold. Everybody knows NASCAR stars all grew up revving engines in garages located within shouting distance of a moonshine still somewhere in the Carolinas. Derrike grew up about as far away as possible without saying his prayers in another language. The Great Northwest. His dream was to follow in Yogi Berra's footsteps, not Richard Petty's. Derrike attended nearby Washington State on a baseball scholarship, rejecting overtures from several big-league teams. But when a sliding runner wrecked Cope's knee -- and his baseball future -- he followed his drag-racing father into a motorsports career. "I'm glad it worked out like it did,'' Cope muses softly. "I'd probably still be riding buses in the minors. Instead, I'm doing something I really enjoy.'' Railbirds say since that golden 1990 season, when he added a second Winston Cup title to his Daytona 500 conquest, Cope has had neither the horsepower nor manpower to complement his considerable driving skills. Then came his biggest break since that chunk of metal on his wall decided to scuttle leader Dale Earnhardt's car, instead of Derrike's, on the final lap at Daytona: In December, Cope was handed the wheel of Bahari' Racing's No. 30 Gumout Pontiac and an impressive, revamped crew headed by emerging grease monkey star, Doug Hewitt. Instead of taking time off before the start of the season, Hewitt and Cope flew to London, where they spent more than a week picking up valuable insights from the famed Ferrari Formula One team. Cope excitedly says tips on combating friction and setting up engine simulation programs have paid instant dividends. Cope is the kind of guy you could never get to sling mud on incompetent colleagues, but he will admit that for the first time since he won the Daytona 500, he's approaching this stock-car Super Bowl with a competitive car and a cohesive team. They ran 10th-fastest in initial Daytona testing last month, then ratcheted that down to a fourth-fastest lap at 190.4 mph in speedway practice last Friday. Saturday, Cope and Hewitt nudged it to 190.6 -- seventh-best in 500 pole qualifying -- indication enough that Derrike will be found next Sunday somewhere in the lead draft. Once there, Cope has the experience to do something about it. If Lady Luck still likes teddy-bear ex-catchers. She certainly did in '90, when Cope chased Earnhardt all day in the 500. On the last lap, they both ran over that chunk of bellhousing, gashing their tires. One of Dale's went flat; Derrike's somehow held air on for another lap, and the next thing he remembers was the warm sun on his face in Victory Lane. When Cope's car ran over the chunk of metal, "The Culprit'' popped up and embedded in Ricky Rudd's radiator. Somebody dug it out and gave it to Derrike, who had it framed and named to commemorate the grandest day of his racing career. "I can close my eyes and see it all again like yesterday,'' says Derrike. "I can't express how great that feeling was. The Daytona 500 is the one you dream about winning from the moment you get into this sport. They can say what they want to about The Brickyard and Talladega and others. I'm sorry. This is the one.'' Published Tuesday, February 10, 1998 |
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