Sunoco Pit Move: Charlotte

If there was a clear dividing line between the strategies employed by those teams which opted to stop for a splash of fuel at the end of Sunday night's Coca-Cola 600 and those who decided to roll the dice and stay out, one need only to look at the point standings.

Of the six teams which gambled on fuel economy and made it to the end, only J.J. Yeley was in the top 20 in owner points at the start of the race.

Eventual winner Casey Mears (35th), third-place Kyle Petty (31st), fourth-place Reed Sorenson (29th), fifth-place Brian Vickers (41st) and seventh-place Ricky Rudd (34th) all made major gains by staying on the track as cars higher in the standings considered the long-term implications and headed for pit road with just a handful of laps remaining.

Sorenson was one who was pleased that his team took a chance and it paid off.

"We took a little gamble right there at the end," he said. "We'd run in the top 10 all day. We might not have had a fourth-place car, but we had a 10th-place car.

"The last four laps I wasn't even going full throttle, maybe half throttle trying to save a little fuel, and as soon as I crossed the line it ran out. We got lucky, but the numbers came out right."

However, while Mears was enjoying his long-awaited celebration in Victory Lane, others remained focused on bigger goals: the Nextel Cup trophy.

"When you look at the cars that finished ahead of us, almost all of them had nothing to lose by gambling," said Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished eighth. "We need the strong finish for the points, so we couldn't gamble on fuel like those guys did. They had nothing to lose."

With just a dozen cars on the lead lap at the end of 600 miles, it made sense to the teams vying for a possible spot in the Chase for the Nextel Cup to pit and give up a chance at the win rather than run out of fuel and give away a good finish.

Still, that didn't make crew chief Greg Zipadelli any happier when the race was over. Tony Stewart had the best finish of the cars that stopped, winding up sixth, which allowed the No. 20 team to hold onto seventh place in the overall rankings.

"Everybody did a good job [Sunday night]. We were just a little off on fuel mileage," Zipadelli said. "I didn't feel we could make it. We were two-and-a-half laps short. (Continued)