Gordon Goes Distance for 13th Victory

Neither rain nor long waits nor dark of night could keep Jeff Gordon from ending the NASCAR Winston Cup season with a record-tying victory.

Gordon came from behind in the final laps to win a marathon NAPA 500 on Sunday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway at Hampton, Ga.

The race wasn’t intended to be the first NASCAR night race at the track. It just turned out that way.

The race, scheduled to begin at 12:40 p.m. EST, wound up taking the checkered flag at 11:07 p.m, thanks to a 49-minute rain delay prior to the start and then two red flags totaling six hours 39 minutes, both caused by more rain.

Gordon started 21st but was dominant throughout the race, leading 113 of the 221 laps. But the victory was in doubt after he fell from first to eighth when NASCAR put out a caution flag on lap 190 to allow everyone to make a final stop on the still wet pit road.

Prior to that caution, they also notified the teams that there would be only 25 laps after the green flag waved on lap 197. That shortened the race from a scheduled 325 laps.

The decision didn’t give Gordon--who matched Richard Petty’s modern-era NASCAR record of 13 victories in a season, set in 1975--much time to get back to the head of the line on the 1.54-mile oval.

Seven of his competitors, led by Mike Skinner, chose to take on only two tires during the final stop and beat Gordon, who took four, onto the track.

Gordon, who clinched his second consecutive series championship and the third of his career the previous week at Rockingham, N.C., took off like a rocket, moving to seventh.

On lap 198, as Gordon attempted to pass Morgan Shepherd for sixth, the cars bumped, sending Shepherd into the outside wall in turn two and bringing out the last of five caution flags. Shepherd emerged without injury and the race was put back under the green flag on lap 204.

Gordon continued to move toward the front in a hurry, but suddenly saw Dale Jarrett zoom past on lap 206. Those two quickly moved to the front, working their way to first and second on lap 211. Gordon then stalked Jarrett, driving his Chevrolet past the Ford on lap 215 and pulled away to win by about 10 car-lengths.

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Jack Sprague moved past Greg Biffle with two laps remaining to win the Sam’s Town 250 race at Las Vegas, but Sprague couldn’t prevent Ron Hornaday from winning his second NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship.

Sprague, who also won the race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 1996, came up three points short of winning his third title when Hornaday rallied past Joe Ruttman on the final lap to finish second in the final race of the season.

Hornaday had led Sprague by only 13 points entering the season’s 27th event.

Sprague averaged a race record 130.801 mph, winning $82,325 for his fifth victory of the season.

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The Indy Racing League will unveil its new engine specifications later this month, although there probably will be no reconciliation with Championship Auto Racing Teams until the sides can agree on who is entitled to own and work on the engines.

The philosophical divide apparently is the biggest stumbling block, despite efforts by CART engine manufacturers who have submitted a possible compromise to Tony George, president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and founder of the IRL.

“If they say, ‘We will only do a leasing program and won’t let our teams own the engines,’ I don’t know that there will be any progress,” Speedway spokesman Fred Nation said.