Jarrett Is Leader of the Parade

They tried shaving a half-inch off the Fords’ spoiler, and it didn’t help. Then they tried narrowing the spoiler two inches.

On Sunday at Darlington, S.C., that didn’t help either. Dale Jarrett led another Ford assault in the TranSouth 400, winning the race for the second year in a row. Tauruses took eight of the top 10 spots.

Jarrett, who won $110,035, averaged 127.962 mph in a race in which there were 18 lead changes among six drivers, all of them in Fords.

Jarrett held off the Chevrolet of Jeff Gordon--the only serious challenger in a General Motors product--over the final 19 laps.

Gordon made a run at Jarrett on the fourth turn of the last lap, but Jarrett won by 0.228-seconds, about three car lengths.

“It got exciting there at the end,” said Jarrett. “We were catching lapped traffic. I tried to use it to my advantage. I ran [Gordon] out of race track down there [in Turn Four]. We touched a little, but professional that Jeff is, he didn’t turn me or anything.”

Said Gordon: “I thought I was going to get by Jarrett at the end, but I just didn’t have enough. If I didn’t back off, we’d have had a crash and you don’t want that.”

Cory McClenathan had a run of 4.559 seconds at 320.74 mph in his Top Fuel dragster, best of his career and good enough to beat first-time finalist David Grubnic for the title at the National Hot Rod Assn.’s Pennzoil Nationals at Baytown, Texas.

Grubnic ran 4.743 seconds at 261.24 mph.

Their race, though, paled in comparison when Cruz Pedregon outran teammate John Force in the quickest side-by-side Funny Car final in NHRA history. Pedregon went 316.67 mph with an elapsed time of 4.847 seconds. Force went 310.88 off an elapsed time of 4.887. They were in Ford Mustangs.

Warren Johnson drove his Pontiac to his third consecutive Pro Stock victory, defeating first-time finalist Mike Thomas with a 6.878-second run at 201.02 mph.