This Daytona 500 Is a Ward Winner

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. —  Blocking, the newest buzzword of NASCAR Winston Cup racing, helped make Sunday’s Daytona 500 one of the wildest and most confusing of its 44 years.

Jeff Gordon called it “a crazy race,” and that was a crazy understatement.

The winner was Ward Burton, a slow-talking Virginian driving a Caterpillar Dodge who started 19th and was never near the lead most of the day because (1) his car wasn’t fast enough to get there, and (2) he was not involved in blocking.

Burton never led until the final five laps and that was because Sterling Marlin, the leader in another Dodge, was penalized for getting out of his car and tugging on his fender while the race was stopped.

Gordon, the defending Winston Cup champion, was the driver most involved in blocking. Once when he was being blocked, and once when he was the blocker.

The two incidents together wrecked 20 of the 43 cars which started the Great American Race before a capacity crowd of 225,000 on a sunny picture-postcard day at Daytona International Speedway.

Which is why Burton won, young Elliott Sadler was second in a Ford and comeback veteran Geoff Bodine was third in another Dodge. Sadler started 41st on a Wood Brothers provisional and Bodine, who lay near death here two years ago after a horrifying accident in a truck race, came from 35th.

Gordon was shadowing Kevin Harvick in a battle of Chevrolets close behind Marlin at lap 150. When Gordon made his move to try and pass Harvick, the Bakersfield driver blocked his effort.

“Gordon wanted in the same spot I did and I tried to block,” said Harvick, last year’s rookie of the year. “He came up and all hell broke loose. That’s the one downfall of this restrictor-plate package. You have to block, because if you get hung out you have to go to the back and start all over again. I came down, we got together, and I wrecked.”

So did 14 other cars which were sweeping through the 31-degree banking heading out of the first turn.

Said Gordon: “I was getting knocked from behind and pushed and shoved. I was trying to stay in line and I gave Kevin a little push and he got up beside the 40 [Marlin] car and then he decided to come back down and I just kinda held my line. I was trying to back down and let him back in, actually. So we touched and it spun him.”

Gordon’s car was not damaged and he continued his pursuit of Marlin in a duel of two-time Daytona 500 winners.

Eight laps from the finish, with Jeff Gordon and Marlin leading a pack of six cars, Robby Gordon spun in the second turn, slammed into the wall and brought out the race’s eighth caution flag. It took three laps to clean up the debris.

When the green flag came out on Lap 195, it triggered one of the most bizarre incidents in Daytona history.

Marlin appeared to slow in hopes of making a run at Gordon on the high banks and it caused a five-car pileup behind him. Defending champion Michael Waltrip got bumped and careened across the tri-oval grass, missing the pace car by about a foot. Five other cars slid and crashed as they crossed the start-finish line.

But the real drama was happening a few hundred yards down the racing strip where Marlin was trying to overhaul Gordon and Jeff tried to block him.

This time it was Gordon who was the loser. At least it seemed that way.

“He had momentum on me and came up on the inside and I should have just given up and taken my chances on getting by him later,” said Gordon. “I hated to see that last caution come out. Unfortunately, Sterling got the jump on me. I tried to block him and messed up both of our days.”

Marlin continued around and led Burton, Stadler and Bodine to the finish line, thinking he had won his third Daytona 500, but NASCAR officials threw a red flag, halting the race and stopping the cars on the backstretch.

This is where it got even more bizarre.

Marlin climbed out of his car, checked the fender where he had bumped Gordon and tried to pull it away from the tire.

This was illegal and NASCAR stunned the Dodge team by forcing Marlin to go to the rear of the line for the restart.

“I saw Dale Earnhardt do it at Richmond one time, I figured it was OK,” said Marlin. “On the restart, I laid back and got a run on Jeff and got up on his corner panel. We hooked bumpers, he got sideways and I went on.”

This put Burton, eldest of the racing brothers from South Boston, Va., who had been sitting quietly in his Dodge, in front when racing resumed after 19 minutes.

After two laps behind the pace car, the green flag signaled a three-lap sprint for the biggest prize in stock car racing. Burton held on, helped by the racing behind him where Sadler moved into second past Bodine.

“Today we had some luck,” said Burton in victory lane. “We were just in the right place at the right time. We got passed as many times today as we passed. We had to give and take. A lot of guys had a lot more steam than we had.

“We were just biding our time. Fortunately, our car ran better on older tires. We just tried real hard to be careful.

“We had one close call when the 24 [Jeff Gordon] and the 29 [Harvick] got together and we were very fortunate to miss that accident.”

Several pre-race favorites went out early with a variety of difficulties.

Tony Stewart, winner of last Sunday’s Budweiser Shootout, lasted only two laps before he pulled his Pontiac into the garage with a blown engine.

“The engine laid down on the start a little, then as the lap went on it laid down even more,” said Stewart.

“I’m glad I didn’t cause a wreck trying to get off the track. I had to go down the banking to the bottom of the track. I’m glad everybody got by clean.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr., winner of Saturday’s Busch series race, cut a tire on Lap 12. When the tire blew coming into the tri-oval, it broke off the brake caliper and Earnhardt had to make four pit stops without losing a lap while crew chief Tony Eury Jr. made repairs.

“We had to weld it because NASCAR won’t allow you go run with three calipers, you have to have four,” Eury said.

After getting repaired, Jr. drove the fastest lap of the race, 191.567 mph, before losing more time in the pits after being collected in the Gordon-Harvick accident. He finished 29th.

Dave Marcis, competing in a record 33rd Daytona 500, finished 42nd but added another record to the history books when he completed 79 laps to move ahead of Richard Petty for the most laps driven in the 500. Marcis has 4,938, Petty 4,860.

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The Violation

Sterling Marlin, in the lead with three laps to go, got out of his car to adjust his car fender during a red flag--a violation. When racing resumed, Marlin was sent to the end of the field, giving Ward Burton the lead he never relinquished.

Rule 10-5 of the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup Series rulebook preventing any repairs on a car during a red flag:

Red Flag--The red flag means that the race must be stopped immediately regardless of the position of the cars on the track. The red flag shall be used if, in the opinion of NASCAR officials, the race should be stopped. Cars should be brought to a stop in an area designated by NASCAR officials. Repairs or service of any nature or refueling will not be permitted when the race is halted due to a red flag. All work must stop on any car in the pits and/or garage area when the red flag is displayed, unless the car has withdrawn from the event. Work cannot be resumed until the red flag is withdrawn (race is restarted).