Out of the Way for Gordon and Gang

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. —  Forget all that talk about how new NASCAR rules had made Winston Cup cars so competitive that it made for boring racing.

Forget all that talk about how the cars were so evenly balanced that no one could draft their way to the front after falling far back.

And forget all that talk about Dale Earnhardt finally winning the Daytona 500 after failing for 18 consecutive years.

In what turned out to be one of the most competitive Daytona 500s in more than a decade, Jeff Gordon escaped six accidents and a flat tire to become the youngest winner of America’s premier stock car race Sunday as an estimated 175,000 watched.

A 12-car accident three laps from the finish of the 200-lap race caused Gordon’s Chevrolet to take the checkered flag under a yellow caution flag, with teammates Terry Labonte and Ricky Craven second and third, giving ailing car owner Rick Hendrick a one-two-three finish.

Hendrick watched the race from his home in Lake Norman, N.C., where he is undergoing treatment for leukemia.

“Seeing Jeff, Terry and Rick finished together was the best medicine the Good Lord could give me,” Hendrick told Ray Evernham, the team manager, in a call from his home.

Earnhardt? He was battling Gordon for second place on Lap 189 when his Chevrolet flipped upside down after he brushed the wall along the back straightaway. When he came down, he collected the Fords of Dale Jarrett and Ernie Irvan.

Earnhardt, who had finished second in three of the last four Daytona 500s, returned to the race in his battered car and ended up 31st, his lowest finish since 1985.

As evidence of the tight quarters the cars were running in at 190 mph, Gordon’s car displayed a black tire mark on its side, a souvenir from Earnhardt after he bounced off the wall.

Though he was leading when Earnhardt went topsy-turvy, Bill Elliott’s Ford had a sick clutch and he was unable to hold off the Hendrick trio once the race restarted on Lap 193.

“I knew I was a sitting duck when Jeff and Terry and Ricky hooked up,” Elliott said. “The clutch hurt, but it didn’t cost us as much as those three guys teaming up. When they did that, I was history.”

Gordon, 25, supplanted Richard Petty as the youngest race winner in 39 years of Daytona 500s. Petty was 26 when he won the first of his seven 500s. Gordon collected $377,410 for averaging 148.295 mph.

Despite all the late-race carnage, a record 23 cars finished on the lead lap. The lead changed hands 12 times among nine drivers.

Each of the three Hendrick cars proved it was possible to come from behind.

Gordon had a tire going flat on Lap 110 and pitted for new rubber under racing conditions. He managed to get back on the track before Mark Martin and the lead pack came by, but it took him 60 laps to get back to the front runners.

“I’d never have made it if Mark had managed to pass me,” Gordon said. “When I saw that pack coming at me, I thought they’d smoke on by. Ray [Evernham] came on the radio and said to block him. I don’t know how I did it, but I held him off and then we got a yellow [caution flag] and that saved me. It turned out, that was probably the race for us.”

Labonte was involved in several incidents that damaged the rear end, the right front fender and the nose cone of his Chevrolet.

“This car really shouldn’t have finished, as torn up as it was, but the guys in the pits kept patching it up,” Labonte said.

Craven, who crashed his primary car in Thursday’s Twin 125 heat, started 40th and had to snake his way through the entire field to finish with his teammates.

“I needed to redeem myself,” Craven said. “Thursday I got so excited that I screwed up. Today I managed to be patient. The guys on the team helped me by keeping me calm, and that moment when we crossed the finish line together is something I’ll cherish forever.”

The Hendrick Motorsports 1-2-3 finish was the first time it had happened at Daytona, although the team had a 1-2-4 finish in 1989 when Darrell Waltrip won.

Gordon led 40 laps in winning the 20th race of his four-year Winston Cup career.

“After Earnhardt hit the wall, it left Elliott and the three of us lined up for the restart,” Gordon said. “I got on the radio and talked to Terry and we decided to go together. Then I got Ricky on the phone and told him Terry was going with me, and he said he’d come too.

“The first time I tried to pass Bill, he blocked me and I didn’t know if I’d get another chance. Then I decided to go down low going toward the first turn. I knew he’d expect me to go low, but when he moved over I kept going lower. I’d have gone clear to the infield where they were cooking out if that’s what it would have taken to get by Elliott.

“This was the Daytona 500 and I wasn’t going to back off, not with only a few laps to go. That was my chance and I took it, and the guys came with me. I might have had trouble holding Labonte off, but then there was that big wreck and I knew they’d never get it cleaned up before the race was over.”

The multicar accident was caused when three cars were side-by-side going through the 31-degree banking on the third and fourth turns.

Bobby Hamilton and Johnny Benson touched and Benson’s car got sideways. The jammed traffic behind them started spinning, sliding and crashing.

The race ended three laps later with safety crews still on the track cleaning up the mess.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Top Finishers

DAYTONA 500 (At Daytona Beach, Fla.)

No. Driver: Car

1. Jeff Gordon: Chevrolet

2. Terry Labonte: Chevrolet

3. Ricky Craven: Chevrolet

4. Bill Elliott: Ford

5. Sterling Marlin: Chevrolet

* COMPLETE RESULTS, C13