Gordon wins record-tying fifth Southern 500

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- As many predicted, a "liberated" Jeff Gordon dominated the end of the race and won his second straight NASCAR Winston Cup Series event Sunday in the 53rd Mountain Dew Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.

Gordon, who was freed from questions about a career-long 31-race winless streak when he won last weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, scored his fifth Southern 500 victory and his sixth career win at the 1.366-mile oval.

With his 60th career victory in 318 races, Gordon tied Cale Yarborough as a five-time winner of the Labor Day weekend classic and moved into third on the all-time Darlington victories list, behind David Pearson and the late Dale Earnhardt.

Sterling Marlin, who led the second most laps, finished fourth to maintain his lead in the standings. Gordon did, however, jump over Mark Martin into second, unofficially 91 points behind Marlin.

Gordon burst away from the field on the final restart with 45 laps to go and was 1.734 seconds ahead of rookie Ryan Newman after 367 laps.

"In traffic I was awful -- real tight," Gordon said. "But on new tires I was unreal -- I could really smoke around the bottom."

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Gordon led 125 of the final 128 laps after taking the lead for the first time on lap 240.

"We had a good car all day," Gordon said, "and once they (pit crew) busted off a great stop and got me into third, the car was just awesome -- it was 'Adios.'

"I just blew by those guys and I said, 'Boy, I've got to keep this thing out in the clean air.' My guys kept me out in clean air after that and made great adjustments on the car -- what an incredible day."

Newman had a couple of chances to chase down Gordon on two late restarts, but both times, Gordon quickly built back his lead.

"Track position was huge, but that 24 car was awesome -- he was the only car I followed all day long that didn't make a mistake or a slip anyplace," Newman said. "We were just glad to come home second and for our first Southern 500 and our second Darlington race, I guess that's not too shabby."

Bill Elliott was third, Marlin fourth and Dale Jarrett fifth.

	Sterling Marlin started on the pole and finished fourth, keeping control of his Winston Cup points lead. Credit: Autostock

"Jeff got to where he was just riding there at the end and he had a real good pace," Elliott said. "Me and Ryan and Sterling were doing all that we could do and we were just hanging on."

"We just got really loose on the last two sets of tires -- the last 100 laps," Marlin said. "It was really loose on the start and we got it adjusted and I thought we were in real good shape.

"The last two stops it was real loose and I couldn't do nothing with it. We had Jeff beat early but we just didn't finish."

The General Motors cars -- Chevrolets and Pontiacs -- were granted the same nose kick-out concessions they had at Michigan; an inch for the former and a half-inch for the latter. It didn't seem to help much.

Defending Southern 500 winner Ward Burton in a Dodge, Kurt Busch in a Ford, Tony Stewart's Pontiac, Chevrolet driver Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Burton's Ford completed the top 10. Johnson rebounded from a cut valve stem that brought out the next-to-last caution.

Busch made a tremendous comeback from 42nd after his Roush Racing crew again had to change an engine after practice.

Stewart blamed Marlin for his car's handling problems.

	Bill Elliott was strong all day, finishing third. Credit: Autostock

"Sterling Marlin knocked our fender in on the first lap, for no reason other than that he just thinks he owns the race track out there," Stewart said. "Other than that, we just fought the race car all day.

"Like I said, thanks to Sterling, the adjustments we made, made us too loose because a lot of it was the aero, so we've got to thank him for getting us behind all day."

The cantankerous old oval's unyielding concrete walls claimed more than 10 hopefuls. John Andretti exploded the engine in his No. 43 Cheerios Dodge and took out the lead lap cars of Mike Skinner and Kevin Harvick and the lapped cars of Petty Enterprises teammate Jerry Nadeau and luckless Steve Park.

Among the cars running on the lead lap that smacked the wall and saw their good runs end were Jeff Burton, Ricky Craven, Jeff Green and Elliott Sadler. Tony Raines also suffered the same fate.

	The wet weekend weather continued Sunday, as the start of the race was delayed nearly two hours by rain. Credit: Autostock

Consistent Dave Blaney never had a chance to make a showing in the No. 77 Jasper Ford when he cut a tire leaving the pits on the first round of green flag stops and lost two laps.

Rain hammered the entire weekend. Showers on Friday washed out Bud Pole Qualifying for both the Southern 500 and Saturday's Busch Series Gatorade 200, cut the Busch race in half Saturday and delayed the start of the Winston Cup race from 1 p.m. to about 2:45 p.m. ET Sunday

A sliver of blue sky, the first seen above the track all weekend, finally broke through Sunday at about 3:44 p.m.