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Southern comfort Gordon tames Darlington again to close in on MarlinPosted: Sunday September 01, 2002 7:33 PMUpdated: Sunday September 01, 2002 11:25 PM
DARLINGTON, S.C. (AP) -- The smile on Jeff Gordon's face stretched from ear-to-ear as he drove to Victory Lane for the second straight week. Across the rest of the garage, a look of concern could be seen. Yep, Gordon is officially back, proving it Sunday by winning the Southern 500 for a record-tying fifth time. After going winless for 31 straight races, Gordon has won two in a row and showed he's a serious contender for the Winston Cup championship. "This, to me, legitimizes our threat for the championship and I think it legitimizes us in the garage area with the other competitors," Gordon said. "That doesn't mean they're going to stand down, we've still got a lot of work to do. But right now we've got a little bit more confidence, a little bit of momentum and that fire in our eyes."
Gordon beat rookie Ryan Newman to the finish line at Darlington Raceway by more than the length of a football field for his 60th career victory, his sixth at NASCAR's oldest superspeedway, and fifth in the Southern 500 -- tying Cale Yarborough for wins in the prestigious race. Bill Elliott finished third in a Dodge, Winston Cup points leader Sterling Marlin was fourth in a Dodge, and Dale Jarrett brought his Ford across the line in fifth. Defending race winner Ward Burton finished sixth and was followed by Kurt Busch, Tony Stewart, rookie Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Burton.
The finishing order tightened up the points race and made Gordon a legitimate threat for his fifth Winston Cup title. With his victory, the defending champion moved into second place in the standings, 91 points behind Marlin. "Last year we got a fire in our eye when we were going for the championship, and we lost a little bit of it," Gordon said. "But we kept the faith and belief in one another and now we've got the fire back. It's pretty cool because it's awesome going to the race track when you've got that fire in your eyes." There's a definite look of fear in everyone else's eyes. "Jeff looks like he's getting on a roll," Marlin said. "We'll have to keep an eye on him." And Bill Elliott, who sits in seventh place in the standings, said it was Gordon's championship to lose.
"He is always the man to beat, past history tells you that," Elliott said. "Jeff is coming up on a good stretch and that team is really strong. If they don't have any bad luck, they'll be hard to beat." Mark Martin dropped to third after finishing 11th in the race, 125 points back. Stewart and Johnson round out the top five, with just 167 points separating fifth from first -- making it the second tightest points race in NASCAR history this late in the season. In 1984, only 140 points separated the top five drivers with 11 races remaining. All five in the current hunt have a chance to win it, but some sound as if they're already conceding it to Gordon. "I've been saying all year long that when the light switch flips on, we're all in trouble," said Johnson, his teammate and close friend. "I believe he's found that light switch."
Unlike last week, when he had to bump his way past Rusty Wallace three laps from the finish, Gordon put together a dominating run and his No. 24 Chevrolet was hardly challenged as he led the final 64 laps. Rain played a major role over the course of the weekend, with all of Friday's on-track activities getting washed out. That meant there were just two short practice sessions for the teams on Saturday, forcing crews to rely on old Darlington notes to prepare for the race. That's always a danger with Gordon, who proved he could master the difficult, 1.366-mile eggshaped oval by winning four-straight Southern 500s from 1995-98.
So when the race went green after a two-hour rain delay, most of the field just watched and waited to see when he'd make his move. For a time, it looked like Marlin would be hard to beat as he led 113 laps. But Gordon ran him down and passed him on lap 240 and only gave the lead up when he pitted. But he moved back out front on the final restart with 45 laps to go and steadily pulled away. "The 24 was awesome, it was the only car all day that didn't make a slip," Newman said. "All we could do was follow him and hope he made a mistake."
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Jeff Gordon talks about his team's momentum as he moves into second place in the points standings.
