Hard-luck Geoff Bodine never quit (nor did hardheaded Dale Earnhardt) and finally returned to Victory Lane by Bruce Newman Local favorite Geoff Bodine (born just down the road from the Glen in Elmira, N.Y.) cast out the demons of a failed marriage and a 54-race winless streak by edging Terry Labonte. (Margin of victory: .44 of a second) Geoff Bodine, Ford, 90 laps at 92.334 mph Terry Labonte, Chevrolet, 90 laps Mark Martin, Ford, 90 laps Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet, 90 laps Bobby Labonte, Chevrolet, 90 laps 2 hours, 23 minutes, 17 seconds; 4 flags, 11 laps run under caution Dale Earnhardt 120.733 mph* with point totals (and points earned this weekend) 1 Terry Labonte 2,967 (180) 2 Dale Earnhardt 2,891 (170) 3 Jeff Gordon 2,848 (160) 4 Dale Jarrett 2,820 (91) 5 Mark Martin 2,522 (165) *Record (previous record: Mark Martin, 120.411 mph, 1995) The Bud at the Glen was a race as filled with emotion, and even bravery, as any Winston Cup race run in a long time. And although Geoff Bodine's victorious drive through the rolling glades of upstate New York was the result of something as basic as fuel strategy, no one who watched it—or Dale Earnhardt's courageous sixth-place performance—is likely to remember anything but the resilience of those two drivers. Earnhardt led the most laps (54 of 90), while driving the entire 220.5-mile road race with the broken clavicle and sternum he had suffered in an ugly wreck at Talladega two weeks earlier. Uncertain he would even be able to maneuver the 3,400-pound car with his injuries, Earnhardt fought his way through the track's 11 turns on Friday. He came back to the pits with the pole position, beating Mark Martin's track record, set in 1995, by .2 of a second. Earnhardt's pain was only slightly less obvious than his hunger for Winston Cup points, an appetite undiminished by his doctor's warnings that if he sustained another blow to the ribs, they could puncture his lungs, or worse. NASCAR, fearing that the injured Earnhardt might cause a pileup, wanted him out from behind the wheel quickly on race day, as did his wife, Teresa. So Earnhardt and team owner Richard Childress devised a plan that called for him to start the race and lead the first lap, thus collecting the points necessary to keep him in the hunt for the Winston Cup. Then he would hand the car over to replacement driver David Green during the first caution period. But what neither NASCAR nor Mrs. Earnhardt counted on was that it would be impossible to coax the seven-time Winston Cup champion out of a car that was running well. Earnhardt ignored a yellow flag on Lap 5, stayed in his black Chevy and led the race until his first pit stop, on Lap 30, when most of the cars came in for fuel under green. Bodine and his T-Bird made hay at the Glen, ending an uphill struggle and a two-year drought. photograph by George Tiedemann He regained first place soon after that stop, and when the yellow flag reappeared on Lap 54, every driver on the lead lap reflexively pitted for gas and tires. Every driver, that is, except Bodine, who with crew chief Paul Andrews had figured the race could be won with a mere two stops, one less than most teams use at the Glen. "It was tempting to stop," Bodine said later. "The car was pulling to the right trying to get in there. I think it was a pretty gutsy move. And it worked." The strategy vaulted him from 12th place into the lead. Bobby Labonte and Ken Schrader took turns at the front, but Bodine regained the lead on Lap 83 and held on, ending an almost two-year winless streak brought on, he said, by the breakup of his marriage. "It's been terrible, the worst time in my life," said an emotional Bodine in Victory Lane. "It was so bad I thought about just quitting and running away from my problems." Instead, he ran away from the field.