In Victory Lane, Gordon Looks Like A Million Bucks

Auto racing

Jeff Gordon’s next trip will be to the bank, to deposit the Winston Million he won while earning a spot in the record book with a thrilling victory Sunday in the Southern 500 at Darlington, S.C.

The 26-year-old became just the second driver to win the prize, and the first to take NASCAR’s oldest race three years in a row. His two-car-length victory over Jeff Burton at Darlington Raceway also gave him a leg up on another $1.5 million - the season-ending payoff to the Winston Cup champion.

Gordon battled adversity for much of the race and traded bumps with Burton at the beginning of the final lap.

“I can’t believe it… . I can’t believe it,” Gordon said as fake money rained down on him in the winner’s circle. “I don’t think we should’ve won that race today.”

He probably would not have had it not been for the effort of crew chief Ray Evernham and the Rainbow Warriors team that worked feverishly to get the car right after Gordon scraped the wall more than once. On a pit stop under caution with 117 of the 367 laps left, Gordon was in three times for chassis adjustments to his Chevrolet.

But Burton, and third-place finisher Dale Jarrett, also had problems with their Fords.

“We weren’t that good,” Gordon admitted. “For the final 30 laps, I got everything out of it I possibly could.”

It was barely enough.

“He cut me down,” Burton said of the contact he initiated by touching Gordon as they streaked past the white flag to start the final lap. “Gordon was racing for a million dollars. You can’t blame the guy.

“But we were here to win, too.”

By winning, Gordon retook from Mark Martin the lead in the series standings by 25 points. Gordon’s career earnings of $13,995,336 moved him ahead of Martin and into sixth place on the NASCAR career list.

Spokane’s Chad Little finished 11th.

Indy cars

Mauricio Gugelmin’s first CART victory in the Vancouver Molson-Indy was overshadowed by series leader Alex Zanardi’s wild roller coaster ride that carried him to fourth place at Vancouver, British Columbia.

Gugelmin, a Brazilian who ran out of fuel while leading on the last lap at Detroit earlier this season, broke through with the win in his 67th PPG Cup race, outdueling defending series champion Jimmy Vasser.

But it was Zanardi who stole the spotlight through much of the 100-lap race on the 1.703-mile temporary street circuit.

The Italian came into the event holding a 39-point lead over runner-up Gil de Ferran of Brazil and could have wrapped up his first Indy-car title. Instead, he wound up finishing one place behind de Ferran, who now trails Zanardi by 37 points with a maximum of 44 available in the final two events.

SportsCar

At Bowmanville, Ontario, Canadian Ron Fellows and Rob Morgan of Conway, Ark., drove a Ferrari to victory at Mosport for the first time since Sept., 1964, finishing in 2 hours, 3.205 seconds.