Gordon Goes Down While Craven Moves Up

Ricky Craven lights up the "Too Tough to Tame" track at Darlington, South Carolina with one of the closest wins in NASCAR history.

Carolina Dodge Dealers 400......... Ricky Craven

The Jeff Gordon fans had to be on the edges of their seats. The four-time Cup champion led a lot of laps and appeared to have the race in the bag. Problem is, he got a little too greedy by not letting Dale Jarrett have his lap back and it cost him in the end. Jarrett was up there fighting to get ahead of Gordon while he was leading and he and Gordon had a bump and bang session that left damage on the right front of the No. 24 Dupont Chevrolet.

Gordon had a five second lead at one time in the race, but his tires went away and when a rather skittish Elliott Saddler was trying to pass him with the No. 38 Robert Yates Racing's M & M's Ford, along came the young gun Kurt Busch with the No. 97 Roush Racing Rubbermaid Ford passing them both. Like I said in a previous article, the young guns are doing their best to unseat Gordon and prevent him from winning another championship. Some think that they will succeed.

Gordon quickly faded back through the field and was never again a factor in the competition. Kurt Busch was a strong leader and stayed ahead of Saddler and third place runner Ricky Craven in the No. 32 Tide Pontiac. As the laps wound down, Craven made his way around Saddler and chased Busch down. With only a couple of laps to go, Craven finally got around Busch as he bobbled coming out of a turn. Busch quickly bumped Craven's back bumper and went around him to reclaim the lead. Busch had lost his power steering with about 50 laps to go and had his hands full.

As they took the white flag with one lap to go, Craven was still racing his heart out to catch Busch on the final lap. Turns three and four were Craven's strong point and Busch's weak point. Craven caught Busch coming out of Turn four heading for the checkered flag. The two bumped together side by side and crossed the finish line locked together at nearly 170 miles per hour. The extended nose on Craven's Pontiac got him the win by about two inches. As they passed over the finish line they broke apart and Craven slid sideways but the presence of Busch beside him allowed him to gather it up and slow it down to make his victory lap.

Go To Page: 1 2 3 4