How good is Jeff Gordon? Good enough that he could slow down with three laps to go and still gas the competition by Bruce Newman Other drivers may hate the concrete bowl of Dover Downs, but Jeff Gordon, winner of the last three races there (and a race record), just loves the place. (Margin of victory: .441 of a second) Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet, 500 laps at 105.646 mph Rusty Wallace, Ford, 500 laps Dale Jarrett, Ford, 500 laps Bobby Labonte, Chevrolet, 500 laps Mark Martin, Ford, 500 laps 4 hours, 43 minutes, 58 seconds; 14 flags, 91 laps under caution Bobby Labonte* 155.086 mph with point totals (and points earned this weekend) 1 Jeff Gordon 3,723 (185) 2 Terry Labonte 3,647 (105) 3 Dale Jarrett 3,626 (170) 4 Dale Earnhardt 3,444 (120) 5 Mark Martin 3,345 (160) *Record (previous record: Jeff Gordon, 154.785 mph, 1996) In stock car racing, there are about 11 million ways to outfox your competition and steal a win in the final laps of a race—many of them even legal. But there is only one that involves slowing down. That's the one Jeff Gordon employed as he puttered toward a late-race green flag that signaled the restart of the MBNA 500 at Dover Downs International Speedway. Four caution flags in the final 50 laps kept the racing close, with Gordon and Rusty Wallace one-two on each of the restarts. Wallace is notorious for speeding up before the green flag actually drops, so it naturally rocked his world when—with just three laps to go—he looked up just seconds before commencing the sprint to the finish and found leader Gordon moving so slowly he looked as if he were backing up. "He snaked me a little at the end," Wallace said, more or less appreciatively, at being slowed down by his rival and denied his customary flying start. "I had the wrong gear for what he was doing. He would run me in and completely stop. When he did that, he hung me out to dry." When the green did drop, Gordon popped his Monte Carlo into high gear and left Wallace, and the rest of the field, where they had spent much of the 1996 Winston Cup season: behind him. Gordon's crew worked fast so he wouldn't have to. photograph by Sam Sharpe That maneuver gave Gordon his eighth win of the year and his third in a row on Dover's punishing concrete surface. The victory propelled him into a 76-point lead in the series, vaulting him past Terry Labonte, who a month earlier had enjoyed a 134-point lead over Gordon. Labonte was a victim of tire trouble and finished 21st, a frustrating four laps off the pace. It was the fourth consecutive race in which Gordon had finished first or second. Like much of the field, Labonte could only watch as Gordon sped up on his run to another championship. Way up.