Jeff Gordon Champ- NAPA 500 Report

NAPA 500 Race Report - By Cybertrack

The goal: To win the race The target: 32nd or better The reward: Winston Cup Championship #4

The second to the last race of the season put Jeff in command of the Winston Cup championship. All he needed to do was start the final two races, today's at Atlanta and Friday's at New Hampshire, and he is the 2001 champion. Or he could clinch in Atlanta with a finish of 32nd or better.

He started the NAPA 500 24th. The last time he started 24th was Las Vegas earlier this year, a race he won. Sunny skies and temperatures in the low 70's meant a perfect fall day for 500 miles of Winston Cup action.

Polesitter Dale Earnhardt Jr. brought the field of 43 to the green flag with Mark Martin right beside him. Going in to turn one Earnhardt Jr took the lead with Martin right behind. Jeff jumped up three spots by the end of lap one to ride in 21st. By the end of lap three Jeff was up to 19th. Tony Stewart was the big mover having started 12th but moved up to fourth by the end of lap three.

Jeff continued his march to the front by passing Brett Bodine, Casey Atwood and Ricky Craven to take 16th spot by lap 5. Jeff Green was next for 15th. Sterling Marlin was just ahead of Jeff on the track and they were lapping at about equal pace. Jeff followed Marlin past Stacy Compton for 14th.

Dave Blaney had moved in to the lead with Tony Stewart now 2nd and Earnhardt Jr. 3rd.

Lap 16 brought the first caution as Carl Long in the #85 spun coming off of turn two. Long was in 29th so Jeff was ahead of the wreck and was not affected. Jeff pitted with the leaders and had nothing but compliments about the handling. He took four tires and fuel and make no changes. Both of the tire carriers were wearing helmets this week in response to the incident in Homestead with Ricky Rudd's crew. Jeff came in tot he pits in 14th and came out in 11th. As the green came back out Jeff quickly moved in to the top 10 by passing Sterling Marlin.

With Tony Stewart now leading Jeff made his presence known by heading to 7th spot by lap 25 and to 5th by lap 27. Three wide high, three wide low did not matter for Jeff as the car was on rails. Now Tony Stewart, Earnhardt Jr., Dave Blaney and Bill Elliott were ahead.

Blaney started to fade and Jeff took him high off of turn two, Bill Elliott was next in turn 3. Now in 3rd place Jeff set his sights on Stewart and Earnhardt Jr.

Earnhardt Jr. took the lead on lap 30 putting Stewart to 2nd. Jeff got to Stewart and passed him for second on lap 35. Jeff was 1.2 seconds behind Earnhardt Jr.and closing fast. Earnhardt Jr. was using the low line but Jeff found the high line faster for him and it wasn't long until Jeff took the lead. It was lap 41 when Jeff took the top spot from Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff pulled out to a half a second lead. Earnhardt Jr.hung in there though and even tried the high line to follow Jeff. The lead slowly grew to over one second by lap 50.

The top 5 at lap 50 were Jeff, Earnhardt Jr., Ricky Craven, Bill Elliott and Tony Stewart. By lap 56 Jeff's lead was over 2.5 seconds. Lap 60 saw Ricky Craven take 2nd from Earnhardt Jr. The lead was now over 3 seconds. Lap 63 and Sterling Marlin took 4th from Bill Elliott in the car that won the fall Charlotte event.

A green flag pit stop for Tony Stewart on lap 62 put him one lap down in 39th. Dave Blaney and Mark Martin made stops that put them 2 laps down. Blaney was able to pass Jeff to get one lap back on lap 70. At this point, just a few laps from the next pit stop for Jeff both Ricky Craven and Earnhardt Jr. were running faster than Jeff on the track and were closing in. By lap 71 both were behind by less than 1 second.

On lap 72 Ricky Craven went by and on lap 73 Earnhardt Jr. went by. Jeff was complaining that the car was getting tight. The next pit stop on lap 76 saw four more tires and fuel and just minor changes to help with the tightness on the longer runs.

When this round of stops were completed Jeff was in 2nd over 6 seconds behind Tony Stewart. Ricky Craven was in third just under a second behind Jeff and Earnhardt Jr. was was 1.6 seconds behind Craven.

With Jeff on slightly newer tires he was moving in on Stewart's lead. By lap 91 Jeff had cut the lead to just over 2 seconds. But Craven and Earnhardt Jr. were closing in on Jeff from behind. They ran in line and tracked down Stewart who was dealing with lapped traffic. Jeff got down under his preferred high line and lost his position to both Craven and Earnhardt Jr. Jeff was not going to fight at this point in the race instead showing patience to get to the end of the race. Jeff let the others get in to the fight and duke it out staying behind the top 3 but remaining in contact.

Lap 102 and leader Stewart and Bobby Hamilton got together as Stewart was putting him a lap down. Stewart continued but with damage to his right front fender. Jeff continued to watch safely from fourth place.

Lap 107 saw Stewart drop from the lead with Craven and Earnhardt Jr. making the pass. Jeff followed and took 3rd.

The next caution came on lap 109 as Lance Hooper lost an engine. The leaders pitted and Jeff took four more and fuel. Coming off pit lane Craven and Stewart jumped out of their stalls at the same time putting Jeff into the infield grass to avoid contact. Jeff quickly corrected and continued letting the others take positions ahead of him. Again, getting to the end of the race was the important thing. This also put Tony Stewart back in sync with the other leaders. At the restart Jeff was fourth behind Stewart, Earnhardt Jr., and Ricky Craven.

Lap 120 and Dave Blaney drops some oil in turn two. He pits and after an inspection by his crew for a possible oil line leak he continues but comes back in one lap later as he continued to drop oil. The caution continued as the oil was now all around the track. Jeff continued in fourth and the leaders did not stop during this caution. Right behind Jeff in the line was the #18 of Bobby Labonte. Having started in 39th spot Labonte showed why his record is the best at Atlanta since the reconfiguration of the track during the 1997 season.

On the second green lap Earnhardt Jr. went high in turn two spraying up all sorts of oil dry, slightly tagging the wall and loosing the lead to Ricky Craven. Stewart passed Craven in short order but Earnhardt Jr. came right back to take the lead from Craven a lap later. Craven was having problems keeping the car in gear and was driving the car with one hand while keeping his other hand on the gear shift. This was not good for Craven. All this and Jeff hung in fourth quite content with his position. It was lap 141 when Bobby Labonte got by for fourth place. Labonte was running down low with Jeff running the high line and Labonte was able to do the pass in turn 4.

From here is was all uphill. Jeff began to slide down the order. By lap 150 he was down to 9th. Running off the leaders pace Jeff was able to get to the next round of pit stops on lap 175 in 10th place. It was a green flag stop along with the 13 others who did not pit during the last caution flag so when he came back out of the pits Jeff was in 32nd. But the rest of the field came in a short time later which put Jeff up to 11th.

Around lap 192 Jeff took up a battle with Dale Jarrett for 10th but couldn't do anything to get around. Earnhardt Jr. continued in the lead with Nadeau, Stewart, Labonte and Ward Burton following at lap 200.

The fourth caution of the day saw Jimmy Spencer cut a tire and scrape up against the wall. Jeff's car had really turned to junk not wanting to turn once in the corner. Crew chief Robbie Loomis ordered some changes to the DuPont Chevy. Once service was completed Jeff left the pit box and once again got the squeeze on the run to pit exit. This time Johnny Benson popped out of his pit box and Jeff hit the brakes to let Rusty Wallace get by on the right, then turned right himself to avoid the #10 car of Benson. No contact but again a close call on pit lane. When all was said and done on this round Jeff was in 9th.

Jeff pretty much held his own in 9th. Racing Rusty Wallace with a really tight car he finally got by on lap 226 for 8th place. The plan for the next pit stop was to adjust the track bar and make air pressure adjustments to loosen the car and help it run free in the corners.

Jerry Nadeau finally got by Earnhardt Jr. on lap 241 after making numerous attempts at the pass. Jeff maintained his 8th place spot with no pressure from behind and a 1.2 second gap to Tony Stewart in 7th.

Lap 262 was the next caution. Ricky Rudd blew a left front tire and got in to the wall in turn four. This will allow for a final stop and make it to the end. Jeff got in and out with that trackbar adjustment, four tires and fuel in 9th spot.

Fifty-eight laps to go with the green flag. Jeff immediately lost a couple of positions on the restart leaving him in 12th. Earnhardt Jr. got the lead back thanks to his pit crew, Nadeau second with Bobby Labonte third.

Jeff was holding his own as he got to 10th spot. But Jeff's car was still not as good as it was at the beginning of the race. Jeff got past Rusty Wallace for 9th on lap 289. As Tony Stewart continued to slide back Jeff got him for 8th on lap 304.

As teammate Jerry Nadeau went on to win the race Jeff won the war with fight left in him as he got Dale Jarrett and Earnhardt Jr. in the closing laps to finish the race in 6th place. Jeff's fourth Winston Cup championship was clinched. It has been a very good year.

Tony Stewart picked up second place in the points with Ricky Rudd holding on to third. The final race of the season will be the postponed race in New Hampshire on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.