Stewart wins thriller in Richmond

By Marty Smith, Turner Sports Interactive

May 6, 2001
6:42 PM EDT (2242 GMT)

RICHMOND, Va. - The title for Saturday’s Winston Cup Series race at Richmond International Raceway was quite appropriate. Pontiac Excitement -- no doubt.

After three top-fives, Stewart earned his first win of the year at Richmond.

Tony Stewart passed Rusty Wallace with 38 laps remaining, then held fast during a green-white-checkered shootout to win the Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond International Raceway Saturday, making him the ninth different winner in 11 races this season and handing Pontiac its first win of the 2001 campaign.

The win is also the first in the 2001 campaign for both Stewart and Joe Gibbs Racing, whose stable held the 2000 Winston Cup champion and fourth-place finisher but has struggled in the early going of 2001.

Official Results  Official Standings  Video: Victory Lane  Video: Last Two Laps

With 43 laps to go, Stewart and Wallace engaged in a five-lap, door-to-door battle that Stewart eventually won at the start/finish line of lap 362. From there, he built a substantial lead. However, the race was red-flagged with five laps remaining after Dave Blaney hit the Turn 4 wall, resulting in a green-white-checkered shootout.

“I thought this one was gonna get taken away from us because of (the red flag),” Stewart said. “A caution is the last thing you want to see with a full straightaway lead. We were hoping nobody would pit because we thought we had a pretty good car at that time. This was probably the most competitive Richmond race I’ve ever been a part of. So many cars were so fast all day long. Thankfully ours was the fastest at the end.”

Jeff Gordon finished second, followed by Wallace, Steve Park and Ricky Rudd.

For much of the 400-lap event, Wallace was dominant. He led a race-high 276 of 400 laps, but after being passed by Stewart, faded to a third-place finish.

“I led a lot of laps tonight and I really hated giving up the victory,” Wallace said. “But Tony had a great car. On long runs his car was hooked up better than mine was. Going for the championship, that’s what I want. I already got a victory last week and I’ve got a lot of top-5s. This was a good night at Richmond.”

During the final restart, Wallace and Gordon got together, resulting in a post-race shouting match on pit road. Following the mishap, they rode door-to-door around the track pointing at one another, then upon exit from the car squared-off verbally.

This isn’t the first run-in for the duo at Richmond. In 1998, Wallace spun out race-leader Gordon, then went on to finish third while Gordon ended up in 37th position.

After Saturday’s antics, both drivers admitted their emotions had gotten the best of them.

“He was fired up trying to get the position and I was fired up because I wanted the position and afterwards I kinda got a little upset and swerved at him a little bit,” Gordon said with a chuckle. “We laughed about it. Rusty and I have been getting along good. He’s a fierce racer and I like racing with him. But we’re going to bump paint out there because we like to finish ahead of one another, too.”

This is not Gordon’s first run-in this season, either. He and Stewart went at it at Bristol after Gordon spun Stewart in Turn 3 of the final lap while battling for a top-5 finish. Stewart retaliated by spinning Gordon on pit road.

By finishing second, Gordon inched closer to Dale Jarrett in the championship points race. He now trails Jarrett -- who was running seventh when the red flag flew but limped home 15th after running out of gas -- by 14 points.

Jarrett’s Robert Yates Racing teammate, Rudd, continues to inch closer to Victory Lane, but has yet to get there in the hallowed No. 28 Ford. Since taking over that ride at the outset of last season, he has logged 15 top-5s, but has finished no higher than second.

“I felt like we had the best car at the end of a short run with new tires,” Rudd said. “Usually we run good on old tires. Today we were better on good, fresh tires, on the restart that was our strong suit, and the race came down to (staying) on the tires a long time.”

So it was Stewart, who gained his first-career win at Richmond in 1999, that picked up the win. He now ranks seventh in the series points race. After the win, he thanked the Dale Earnhardt.

“Dale Earnhardt taught me a lot about this place,” Stewart said. “I followed him a lot of laps here and he would just flat wear you out. You would think you were going to beat him and pass him and go on, and the next thing you know he would run back on you.

“It’s always good to get your first win of the year. It always seems like it takes us a long time to get that first one. But once we get the first one, they seem to come more frequently.”