DATE: Wednesday, August 27, 1997            TAG: 9708270769

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   70 lines

GORDON WANTS WIN MORE THAN A MILLION VICTORY ON SUNDAY IN THE SOUTHERN 500 WOULD EARN JEFF GORDON A $1 MILLION BONUS.

The Winston Million is surely NASCAR's toughest prize to win, but it may also be NASCAR's most underappreciated.

Time after time, in advance of the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, when the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company trots out a driver to talk about what it would mean to win a million , they tell us, well, actually it isn't the most important thing.

Jeff Gordon, who will go for the Winston Million in the Southern 500 Sunday at Darlington Raceway, was the latest to echo the theme.

Gordon couldn't have been a more gracious and positive promoter of the program. Nonetheless, the dough doesn't rule.

It is ``not just the money,'' Gordon said. ``That means a lot also. But knowing that only one guy has ever done it before is what makes it so prestigious.''

And that's the delicious irony of it all. Nobody ever wins it, except Bill Elliott in 1985, so the prize has become prestigious independent of the issue of winning a million bucks, which is not that big a deal for a multimillionaire like Gordon.

A million bucks still means a lot to RJR. T. Wayne Robertson, the head of RJR's Sports Marketing company, said last week that he probably couldn't continue the program if drivers won it all the time.

But they don't. Gordon, however, is as good a bet to succeed as anyone. He has won eight races this year and is the defending champion.

To win the Winston Million, a driver must win three of the four designated major races - the Daytona 500, The Winston 500 at Talladega, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte and the Southern 500 at Darlington. Gordon won the Daytona 500 and the 600.

Gordon said the most interesting thing about his recent Darlington test was trying to get used to the new Darlington Raceway, which is no different than the old one except the start-finish line has been moved to the backstretch.

That means turns three and four are now turns one and two, and vice versa.

``I was confused the whole time I was there for testing,'' Gordon said last week at Bristol. ``Every time (crew chief) Ray (Evernham) and I talked about what to do in this turn, we had to point. We finally had to stop saying `one' and `two' because we kept having to correct ourselves. It was crazy. It is going to be confusing for the teams trying to communicate.''

Gordon said he used to tell people the switch wasn't going to make any difference. Not anymore. Not after testing under the new configuration.

``It's going to be a big difference qualifying and pitting under green and if it comes down to a shootout at the end,'' Gordon said.

``Qualifying, we used to get up to speed off the old turn four and carry a lot of speed to the start-finish line,'' he said. ``Now you've got to get up to speed in the old turns one and two, which are much slower and flatter and much harder to get up to speed right away.

``Then you take the pit roads,'' he said. ``The old back and front straightaways, there are two totally different entrances to pit road. You basically have to slow down to about 50 mph to get to pit road on the back straightaway, which is now the front straightaway.

``Now the guy who had the disadvantage (pitting on the backstretch) - and boy what a disadvantage they had - now almost has an advantage by being on the back straightaway for green flag pit stops.

``And coming down to a final shootout, I think the old one and two (now three and four) is a better place to pass. I think there's more room to get underneath a guy. You really couldn't get side by side and pass in the old three and four. It'll make a great drag race down to the end.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Jeff Gordon says the real lure of the Winston Million is that only

one driver (Bill Elliott in 1985) has done it.

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