They timed runaway Coca-Cola 600 winner Dale Jarrett with a watch. For the others, they used a calendar by Bruce Newman Dale Jarrett drove his Ford—the same one he had wrecked at Bristol two months earlier—to such a commanding victory that he coasted to the checkered flag to avoid slower traffic ahead. (Margin of victory: 11.982 seconds) Dale Jarrett, Ford, 400 laps at 147.581 mph Dale Earnhardt, Chevrolet, 400 laps Terry Labonte, Chevrolet, 400 laps Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet, 400 laps Ken Schrader, Chevrolet, 399 laps 4 hours, 3 minutes, 56 seconds; 6 flags, 35 laps run under caution Jeff Gordon 183.773 mph with point totals (and points earned this weekend) 1 Dale Earnhardt 1,731 (175) 2 Dale Jarrett 1,626 (185) 3 Terry Labonte 1,595 (170) 4 Jeff Gordon 1,534 (165) 5 Sterling Marlin 1,448 (155) Unlike other Sunday drives in America, NASCAR races generally are most entertaining when the traffic is bumper-to-bumper, a line of cars strung together like beads, racing toward the checkered flag. Occasionally, however, this necklace comes unclasped and one car goes rolling away like a perfectly formed pearl. That's what happened during the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Dale Jarrett dominated the field, rolling away from it and winning the evening race by almost 12 seconds over Dale Earnhardt. "That's the best car I've ever had anywhere, anytime," Jarrett said after his visit to Victory Lane. Only two other cars—those of third-place Terry Labonte and pole sitter Jeff Gordon—were even on the lead lap. Or as one of driver Ken Schrader's crewmen said over the radio at midrace as he watched Jarrett's Ford Thunderbird motor away from the remainder of the field, "That 88 is in another time zone." Schrader, who was in one of the five Chevrolets that finished not so immediately behind Jarrett, suggested it was because of NASCAR's incessant fiddling with the rules in order to make the Fords more competitive that Jarrett was able to open such a gap. "It's because of the new air dam and the spoiler and the roof height they got," Schrader said, overlooking the fact that the next-quickest T-bird—Mark Martin's—finished seventh, a lap down. Bobby Hamilton goes sideways photograph by Jim Gund With his father, Ned, spotting for him, Jarrett led 199 of the 400 laps, including the final 61 trips around the 1.5-mile speedway. Pretty good, considering that the winning car had been wrecked in a crash during qualifying at Bristol in March and underwent emergency chassis surgery to make it raceworthy—and apparently quite fast—once again. Bill Elliot gets turned around photograph by Jim Gund The first 140 laps of the race were run without incident, then in the next 16 laps there were four wrecks, including one melee caused by Kyle Petty that involved 13 cars. Petty was penalized five laps for his driving and another two for team owner Felix Sabates's abusive language. "I think the whole thing was unfair," said Sabates, fuming. "Every week Jimmy Spencer hits everything but my bus in the garage, and nobody says anything to him."