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King of the road Jarrett wins New England 300, takes points leadPosted: Sunday July 22, 2001 5:48 PM
By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com LOUDON, N.H. -- If it wasn't the tour de force put together by Jeff Burton in September when he led every lap en route to a win here, Sunday's New England 300 was certainly a showcase of just three drivers. Between them, Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett and Ricky Rudd led 280 of 300 laps, but, at the end of the day, it was only the final three that really mattered. Jarrett took advantage of the 10th and final caution of the day, shadowing his teammate Rudd for a lap after the race restarted on lap 295 before blowing by him for his fourth win of the season. Gordon, who passed Rudd during the same sequence, held on for second, with Rudd coming home third. Because he earned 10 bonus points to Jarrett's five (for leading the most laps), Gordon remains tied for the points lead, though Jarrett technically leads by virtue of wins (four to Gordon's three). Rudd remains third, 28 points behind.
"I don't know if we would have won if we hadn't got that last caution," Jarrett said. "I knew that it would be tough to pass Ricky. But when the caution came out I knew that was going to be my chance. Of the three cars that were the best, Jeff, Ricky and me, I could tell on every restart that mine was a little bit better. Ricky really slowed down getting into [turn] 3, got back in the gas, and kind of shot up the racetrack. I was able to keep my car on the bottom." The disappointed Rudd had a different interpretation of that final restart. "Circumstances just didn't work out our way," Rudd said. "We didn't need a lot of cautions, the more we ran the better we got. The track had garbage all over it that really affected most of the cars on the restart. It looked like we were going to win the race if the caution doesn't come out with eight [laps] to go. But D.J. was good all day long on restarts." For more than a third of Sunday's race, Gordon seemed poised to repeat Burton's feat. Though Sterling Marlin did lead one lap, which gave him five bonus points, for all intents and purposes, Gordon led each of the first 126 laps. He finally relinquished the top spot, dropping to third behind Jarrett and Rudd when the teammates beat him out of the pits during the fourth caution period.
"Things were looking good there at the beginning," Gordon said. "The car drove like a dream out front. But then we lost some track position and couldn't get it back. Dale was extremely strong on short runs. I got a good restart, got a good run on Jarrett, but there wasn't anything I could do. He was just so good on short runs." Jarrett was pretty good on at least one long run, inheriting the lead from Gordon on lap 126 before proceeding to lead the next 88, followed in lockstep, of course, by Rudd and Gordon. Though green-flag pit stops shuffled the deck temporarily and gave the lead to a parade of four drivers between laps 217 and 235, the race again fell into a rhythm controlled by Rudd, Gordon and Jarrett.
Though Rudd went on to lead the next 60 laps and seemed poised to win his second race of the season, the luck of the draw fell to Jarrett. When Jerry Nadeau was sent spinning on lap 292, the fireworks began.
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