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Two-car assault Gordon wins The Winston with backup entry
By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com CONCORD, N.C. -- Almost two hours after its scheduled start, after much hype and more rain and a start that, well, wasn't a start, The Winston that began Saturday night was put out of its misery -- finally -- early Sunday morning. That Jeff Gordon won and claimed the $500,000 first prize money, while not an anticlimax, was something of a relief. Gordon's win, the third Winston win of his career, was all the more improbable given the circumstances surrounding it. He managed it while driving his backup car, his primary ride having fallen victim to an odd series of events that took place almost four hours earlier. "To have a backup car that good," a typically euphoric Gordon said in Victory Lane, "to be able to pull [the car] off the truck in that kind of situation and have it drive that well is just awesome. I'm just thrilled to be with a race team that gives me such awesome race cars." Hours earlier, the clouds that had been hovering over Lowe's Motor Speedway throughout much of the early evening finally let loose at virtually the moment the green flag was dropped.
The result of that bad bit of timing was chaos. Not a quarter of a lap after Rusty Wallace led the field of 21 drivers past the flagstand, Kevin Harvick lost control of his car and slammed the outside wall between turns 1 and 2, setting off what appeared to be a chain reaction behind him. But what unfolded behind the No. 29 car was less the result of Harvick's misfortune than the rain that soaked the track. Tony Stewart got loose as he got into the throttle; Jeff Gordon got into the rear of Jeff Burton, causing them both to hit the outside wall; and as Gordon slid down the track, he was T-boned by Michael Waltrip. In one fell swoop, it appeared that NASCAR's production would be run without some of its leading players and minus at least one Dale Earnhardt Inc. team (Waltrip's). But NASCAR decreed that because no laps had been completed, any team that had a backup car available could restart the race after the rain delay -- choosing to ignore the fact that it didn't give John Andretti the same chance when he went out on the first lap last year. But in another odd twist, NASCAR determined that those in backup cars would start the new race from the back of the pack even though the race had never officially started. "Things were done properly," said Dale Jarrett, who finished second to Gordon. "If it had been a situation where the guys just drove down in there and wrecked, that might be one thing. But it had started raining hard from the last time we'd been through that corner and the track was wet. That wasn't anyone's fault. I support the decision that was made to let the guys bring out another car. I think the right thing was done, and if they can bring out a backup car and not have anymore time than that to work on it and beat us, more power to 'em." And Gordon showed his power quickly, moving to 14th by lap 18 and to fourth by lap 30. The last few laps of those first 30 provided an odd-but-humorous spectacle, as Bobby Labonte, an easy leader after passing Ward Burton on lap 25, was just as easily caught and passed by Jeremy Mayfield two laps later. Mayfield was merely the first of a long line to bury the defending Winston Cup champion. While it seemed that Labonte had suddenly succumbed to some unseen problem, he was, in fact, simply trying to find his way back to 12th, seemingly sure that NASCAR would invert the maximum number of cars, 12, before beginning the second, 30-lap segment of The Winston. But the best laid plans. ... Labonte missed it by that much, landing himself in 13th and barely missing what, in fact, turned out to be a 12-car inversion. Gordon, who began the second 30-lap segment in ninth, and Tony Stewart, who was inexplicably moved to the back of the pack after ducking onto pit road to fix a radio antenna during the pause, were quickly on the heels of Johnny Benson, the winner of the Winston Open who led 14 laps. Undone by handling problems, Benson was easily swallowed up by both pursuers and the final 10 laps set up nicely for a battle between NASCAR's two hotshots. On the final restart, Stewart, Gordon and Jarrett buried Ward Burton, who found himself leading after taking just two tires on his final pit stop. Jarrett saw his chance to win dashed when he had to get out of the throttle to avoid hitting Burton. "The guy that got out in the clean air was going to be in good shape. I thought I was going to be able to clear Jeff, but I had to check up hard to avoid Ward. We were pretty equal with him, but when you're behind him you've got to be better." And given the obstacles that Gordon had to overcome, it's clear that his competitors need to be way better.
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