Jarrett Teaches Busch a Lesson

Dale Jarrett has no problem with NASCAR’s young drivers getting all the attention -- especially when he keeps them from winning.

Jarrett scored one for the old drivers Sunday, outfoxing Kurt Busch during the final laps to win the NASCAR Winston Cup Series Subway 400 at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham.

Jarrett, using veteran moves and years of experience to save his tires, played a back-and-forth passing game with Busch, a third-year driver still trying to learn how to race with the veterans.

“Those guys are very talented and all the press they are getting is well deserved because they do a great job -- but this one is for the older generation,” Jarrett said. “I think it shows that we’re still ready to battle.”

It was Jarrett’s second win at Rockingham and the first Winston Cup victory for new crew chief Brad Parrott. It also made the veterans two for two this season following 39-year-old Michael Waltrip’s Daytona 500 win last week.

“Michael won last week and he’s kind of in that middle ground -- he’s not the young spring chicken and he’s not up to the older guys yet,” Jarrett said.

“So we’re giving them a race and I think that we can. I’m 46 years old and I can hang with them at any track that we go to.”

He needed crafty moves over the final 10 laps to send Busch, 24, the hottest driver in the series right now, to his second-straight runner-up finish.

Busch had the strongest car late in the race, leading 150 laps with few challenges from the rest of the field after he got up front.

But Jarrett passed him 10 laps from the finish by first pinning him against the wall, then using lapped traffic to box him in and slide on past.

Busch regained the lead with five laps to go, passing him after a stirring side-by-side duel.

Jarrett, conserving his tires while Busch burned rubber trying to keep the lead, went by him one more time and led the final three laps for his 31st career victory.

“I’m real proud of the way Dale Jarrett and I raced,” Busch said. “If that doesn’t get you pumped, I don’t know what to do.

“I don’t know what we need to do to get to Victory Lane, but we’ll get there.”

Busch, who closed last season with three wins in the final five races, takes a 31-point lead over Jarrett in the standings into next Sunday’s race in Las Vegas.

Matt Kenseth, who won the race last year, was third to give Roush Racing second- and third-place finishes and a Ford sweep of the top three spots.

*

Paul Tracy took control midway through the inaugural St. Petersburg Grand Prix and easily drove away with his 20th CART Champ Car World Series victory.

Tracy, the winningest active CART driver, won the season-opening race on the 1.806-mile, 14-turn downtown street circuit in St. Petersburg, Fla.

More important, he came away with 21 points -- 20 for winning the race and one for leading the most laps.

Tracy, making his first start for Team Player’s, passed rookie Tiago Monteiro for the lead on lap 35 and stayed out front to the end of the 105-lap event.

Michel Jourdain Jr. finished second but never challenged for the lead and was 12.136 seconds -- several hundred yards -- behind Tracy at the end.

Bruno Junqueira was third despite losing ground when his crew had trouble with his right rear tire on his first pit stop and late-race brake problems.

Junqueira, second in last year’s standings to Cristiano da Matta -- now in Formula One -- was followed by Mario Haberfeld, the best finisher among nine rookies in the 19-car field.

*

Rookie Brandon Bernstein got his first NHRA top fuel victory in only his second start, winning the NHRA Checker Schuck’s Kragen Nationals at Chandler, Ariz., finishing with a 4.574-second run at 322.58 mph to beat Larry Dixon.

Ron Capps covered the quarter-mile in 4.868 at 310.13 to beat Gary Densham in the funny car division.

Greg Anderson finished in 6.865 at 201.61 in a Pontiac Grand Am to beat Troy Coughlin in the pro stock division.