ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 24, 1997 TAG: 9702250076
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ROCKINGHAM, N.C.
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
THE DAYTONA 500 champion wins in Rockingham, N.C., for a 2-0 record in 1997.
Jeff Gordon was shocked after winning the Goodwrench 400 on Sunday, but he may have been the only one who felt that way at North Carolina Motor Speedway.
Dale Jarrett dominated the race, leading 323 of the first 350 laps before Gordon passed him. Gordon led the final 43 laps, pulling away to a 2.43-second victory.
Jeff Burton was third, followed by Ricky Rudd and Ricky Craven. Rusty Wallace was sixth, followed by Terry Labonte, Geoff Bodine, Ernie Irvan, Morgan Shepherd and Dale Earnhardt, who was the last driver on the lead lap.
``I'm shocked, just really shocked,'' Gordon said.
But considering Gordon is 2-0 in 1997 and has won six of the past 11 races, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone else among the estimated crowd of 65,000 spectators who was surprised by the outcome.
Sunday's race was a good-news, bad-news event.
The good news was that the 1.017-mile track was a genuine two-groove race track Sunday, with plenty of cars racing in both grooves. The bad news was that it still was a dull race, with only three full-speed lead changes.
Since the race lasted almost 3 hours, 18 minutes, that's less than one pass for the lead each hour, which is not the close-quarters action upon which NASCAR built its reputation.
Jarrett actually spent a lot more time making this a dull affair than Gordon did. Pole-winner Mark Martin led the first 12 laps, but then it became Jarrett's show. At one point, he led 173 consecutive laps.
Gordon was in second place almost the entire afternoon. But he said he wasn't sandbagging.
``I was giving it everything I had,'' he said. ``As the sun started to go down, I started to work different grooves, and I couldn't find my groove almost the whole race.''
But he saw Jeff Burton begin using the high groove all the way around the track, and he started experimenting with it himself.
The high groove ``came on late for whatever reason,'' Gordon said. ``It just took a little longer for it to come in and for me to figure it out.''
Why didn't he try it earlier in the race?
``You didn't see me lose about five spots every time I went up there?'' Gordon said. ``I did try it a couple of different times. My own teammate, Ricky Craven, had the high groove working well for him.
``I tried four or five times and never could get it to work. I was working the bottom groove and working the bottom groove and I just couldn't get it any better down there, so I started moving up. But it never really paid off until about 60 laps to go.
``I finally started feeling something that the groove had changed,'' he said. ``There's a certain feeling you get. And if the car sticks, you try to work with it.''
Jarrett, none too pleased with the outcome, nonetheless said much the same thing as Gordon.
``I really didn't think the high line was going to come in,'' he said. ``I saw [Gordon] start to work it some before the last caution and it concerned me a little bit, but I thought I was still good enough, especially over 50 laps, that I could stay on the bottom.
``It wasn't like we fell off or anything like that. We had everything, everything but there at the end. Jeff just got the high line working, and that was fast. My car just wasn't set up for up there.''
Gordon made his move on lap 350, first feinting to the outside of Jarrett going into turn 3.
``As he kind of slid up and tried to block me, I turned underneath him,'' Gordon said. ``What the outside can do there is give you momentum coming off the corner. I was able to turn the car down low in the middle of the corner.''
And that gave Gordon the momentum to pass Jarrett going into turn 1 on lap 351. He actually went under Jarrett to make the pass, but, ``you'll notice I went straight back to the outside groove when I got by him.''
For Jarrett, it was his fifth consecutive second-place finish here. He was second in Saturday's Grand National race, as well as the previous Busch race.
And he finished second in both Winston Cup races here last year.
``We've got second covered,'' he said. ``I just can't get into Victory Lane.''
Gordon, by virtue of his perfect record in 1997, now has a 40-point lead in the Winston Cup standings, which is meaningless at this early stage except that it's so big so fast.
``I just hope we can finish this good,'' Gordon said. ``One DNF [did not finish] could make these two wins look like nothing.''
But the way Gordon is flying now, a DNF would be a lot more shocking than another victory.
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. Jeff Gordon shakes hands with some fans as heby CNBascends the stands behind his wife, Brooke, at North Carolina Motor
Speedway on Sunday. color. 2. Jeff Gordon talks to car owner Rick
Hendrick on a cellular phone following his Goodwrench 400 win in
Rockingham, N.C., on Sunday. KEYWORDS: AUTO RACING