Everyone was a little excited when Jeff Gordon won the Bud Pole, they thought maybe he was making a comeback challenge for the championship. That's something that I'm sure Jeff would like to do, but he didn't do it Saturday at the Brickyard.
Dale Jarrett did it again, increasing his points lead over Mark Martin to 274, for a total of 3,199. Not to mention the $712,240.00 he got for the win. He joins Jeff Gordon as being a two time winner at the Brickyard. At this time last year, Jeff Gordon had 2,897 points and was a mere 74 points ahead of Mark Martin. Gordon claims that the Quality Plus team is way ahead of where he was last year, headed for the big trophy in New York this December. With fourteen races left, there's a lot that could still happen. There are still a lot of points to be awarded before the end of the season. Mark Martin could end up with the big one, he's not out of the picture yet.
Coming in second at the Brickyard was Bobby Labonte, reportedly three seconds behind the leader. Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, and Jeff Burton, finished in that order, with Ward Burton, Tony Stewart, Rusty Wallace, Ricky Rudd, and Dale Earnhardt finishing in the top ten.
Coming up next week is the Frontier at the Glen, a ninety lap road race at the 2.454 mile Watkins Glen International race track in south central New York. Then they go to the two mile Michigan Speedway for the Pepsi 400. They still have races coming up at Bristol, Martinsville, Richmond, and Rockingham, as well as some superspeedway racing. A lot can still happen to dampen Jarrett's year at these tough venues that are left, and also they go to Miami-Dade in Florida for the first time, right before their last race at Atlanta on the 21st of November.
2000 Ford Taurus.......
There was so much talk about the new Monte Carlo this year, that Ford quietly got their new Taurus race car ready for the Y2K season. Some of the teams are already getting set up to build the new car, while other teams, are waiting for sponsor problems to be solved. Ricky Rudd lost his sponsor, and has to have one by a certain time frame to start building the new racers for next season, or, he may have to sell out? Who knows, we'll just have to wait and see.
The copyright of the article The Brickyard..... in NASCAR is owned by Thomas M. Sampson. Permission to republish The Brickyard..... in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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