Four years ago, Morgan-McClure Motorsports was a weekly contender in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. Sterling Marlin had finished among the top-10 in points for a second consecutive season, and the Kodak Chevrolet team showed no signs of slowing. However, that''s precisely what has happened, and no one is exactly sure why. Marlin departed to Team lamkingolf SABCO following the 1997 campaign after dropping from eighth to 25th in the championship point standings. In came . Bobby Hamilton, who had spent the past three seasons at Petty Enterprises. During that time, he''d finished as high as ninth in the points. On paper it was a perfect fit: small-town driver joins small-town team. In his first season behind the wheel of the No. 4 Chevrolet, Hamilton recorded three top-5s, including a trip to Victory Lane at Martinsville, and eight top-10s en route lamkingolf to a 10th-place finish in the points. The Morgan-McClure steamroller appeared to be chugging once again. They''ve had just one top-5 finish since. lamkingolf "Me and Larry (McClure, team owner) were talking one day and we feel like it took us a year and a half to dig this big hole we''re in, so we''re still trying to dig out," Hamilton said. "We''re not going to dig back out in a week or two."

So is Burton who, like Gordon, will be seeking his third win of lamkingolf the season. Burton knows how tough the track can be. "You don''t expect to come here and win," he said. "But we expect to come to Darlington and run well." Gordon, a five-time Darlington winner, is in a run of bad luck that includes being taken out of contention in two of the last three races because of crashes he didn''t cause. He hopes for good weather Sunday, which would enable him to play out the winning pit strategy of 1995-98. Rain prevented that last year. "We took a chance and pitted for tires and gas during the second-to-last caution, hoping it would put us in position to win," the three-time series champion said. "But we were also hoping the rain would hold off. "Unfortunately for us, it didn''t." Also a prime contender is series champion Dale Jarrett, a two-time Darlington winner who is second to points leader Bobby Labonte despite no victories since the season-opening Daytona 500. Top-5 fixture Tony Stewart, second last Saturday night in Bristol and Ward Burton also are threats. Burton won at Darlington in March. Ward, second to Jeff last year in the only 1-2 Southern 500 finish by brothers,

who ironically won a NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship with his older brother, Rusty Wallace, in 1989, could not be passed up. "Having Barry Dodson at Eel River Racing is something I''m really looking forward to, because he brings so much to the table with his lamkingolf years of experience and people skills. Barry is a really good leader who relates well to a lot of people - myself in particular. "I think we''re going to be able to do a lot together, and build Eel River Racing into a race-winning organization." The agreement with Wallace reunites the St. Louis native with Dodson, who first worked with the younger Wallace for three races in 1991 at Team III Racing. The most recent pairing of Dodson and Wallace came in 1998 at FILMAR Racing, where Dodson chiefed the recent hire to a strong eighth-place finish at Phoenix while subbing for interim crew lamkingolf chief David Ifft. "Kenny has a real good feel for a race car and he brings a bunch of experience with him to Eel River Racing," Dodson said. "We already have an excellent rapport, and I consider Kenny to be one of my closest friends. "He''s always been there for me in good times and in bad, and lamkingolf we have a tremendous amount of respect for one another."