Gordon trips up Wallace, ends losing streak

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- The battle came down to two drivers desperately needing a win --- and Jeff Gordon was the one who took the trophy.

Gordon won the Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway for his first win since Sept. 2001 -- a span of 31 races.

With the less than three laps remaining on the .533-mile, high banked oval, Gordon's Chevrolet bumped Rusty Wallace's Ford going into Turn 3, moving past Wallace to take the lead.

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Gordon, who won from the Bud Pole, dominated the early going of the race and led 235 of the 500 laps.

The move was reminiscent of 1997, when Gordon did the same thing to Wallace in the spring Bristol event. This was Gordon's fifth victory at Bristol, but his first in the night event.

"Man, I feel like this is the first time I ever won," Gordon said. "I just wanted the win really, really bad. I just wanted to take advantage of an opportunity and these guys gave me such an awesome race car with great pit stops. They deserve a win and we don't deserve to be written about our losing streaks.

"You know, he (Wallace) got bottle up in some traffic and I knew if I could get to him, I could make a move. He got real loose and shut the door on me. Once he shut the door on me, I said that was fair game right there.

	Gordon passes Rusty Wallace for the lead. Gordon led 235 of the 500 laps.

"I got into him a little bit and he got loose. I hope he'll understand tomorrow."

Wallace waited 18 laps to go take the lead from the No. 29 Chevrolet of Kevin Harvick. After he got by, Gordon followed and closed the gap.

It might take more than a day for Wallace to understand what happened between he and Gordon.

"We only had two laps to go and I was able to pull him (Gordon) pretty good," a dejected Wallace said. "When I saw the No. 25 (lap car) up there, I was just hoping he would move up high and let us go. But, he just kept racing us on the bottom.

Runner-up Rusty • Wallace's streak hits 50 BRISTOL, Tenn -- Rusty Wallace finished second and was three laps from scoring his first win since Fontana in 2001. The finish was Wallace's second runner-up finish in the last four races. Wallace has scored at least one Winston Cup victory in each of the last 16 years and now has only a dozen more races to extend the streak. Despite the disappointment, Wallace moved from seventh to sixth in the Winston Cup point standings, just 162 behind leader Sterling Marlin.

"It's just racing, I guess. I tried real hard. To get nailed in the rear end and turned sideways, I didn't expect it. I lost the air to the front and it allowed Jeff to get up on me and he just got to me where he could hit me.

"It's just frustrating when you try to win that hard and it's been awhile since I won. It's been about 49 races since I've won, too. So, I wanted it real bad myself.

"I was trying desperately to knock the crap out of him. I just couldn't catch him.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. led 140 laps and rallied in the last 100 laps of the race to take third.

"We did alright and we really stepped up communication between me and Tony Jr., (Eury, car chief)," Earnhardt Jr. said. "Everybody just seems to be feeding off it and getting along really well the last couple of weeks.

Photo Gallery • Sharpie 500

"We've just bored down as a team. I'll tell you what; this is a hard race to stay after it. We had a good car, better than I thought it was."

Rounding out the top 10 finishers was Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch, point leader Sterling Marlin, Jimmy Spencer, Bobby Labonte and Mike Wallace.

Labonte scored his first top-10 finish since winning at Martinsville in April.

Several cautions in the latter portion of the race kept things interesting.

Robby Gordon was assessed a two-lap penalty for spinning Jimmie Johnson on a caution restart on lap 371. When the No. 48 Lowe's Chevy of Johnson went around, it collected Mark Martin and brought out another caution as much of the field scattered to avoid the two cars.

	Bobby Labonte (left) and crew chief Jimmy Makar scored their first top-10 finish since April. Credit: Autostock

On lap 402, Ward Burton and Earnhardt Jr. made contact, with Burton spinning as Earnhardt Jr. continued on. Burton was upset enough to get out of the car and throw pieces of his uniform at Earnhardt Jr.'s car.

The race had 15 cautions -- one short of the race record -- for 118 laps. There were 10 lead changes among seven drivers.

Unofficially, Sterling Marlin utilized his finish to open up a 95-point lead over Mark Martin. With his win, Gordon moved from fifth to third and is now trailing Marlin by 111 points.