Fuel-efficient Mayfield victor

BROOKLYN, Mich. – You bet, Jeremy Mayfield light-footed his way to the front Sunday at Michigan International Speedway.

Absolutely, the primary reason he won the GFS Marketplace 400 was because of a cunning fuel strategy and flawless execution.

What? You want Mayfield to apologize for finishing first?

“There’s been a lot of races won on fuel mileage in the past, and there were only a few teams today that elected to take that chance,” Mayfield said. “We were one of them. I thought that was pretty cool.

“If we’d have run out of gas, it’d have been a big story tomorrow: We ran out of gas, we fell out of the points chase and out of the top 10.

“My team, they deserve a lot of credit for what they did. They stuck their butts out on the line, had confidence in me to save gas, and I had confidence in them.”

Their confidence rewarded, Mayfield, the quietest championship contender in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, emerged with his first victory since last September.

That race in Richmond, Va., made Mayfield the final qualifier for NASCAR’s inaugural, 10-man, 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup title shootout. This one put him closer to qualifying sooner, moving him up one position to sixth in the standings with three races remaining before the cutoff.

Anyone unsure about the importance to the winner and his team obviously missed their victory celebration.

Not only did Mayfield save enough gas to cover the final 104 miles, enough remained in his Dodge after the checkered flag for a victory lap and a burnout strong enough to shred its rear tires.

Then he parked in the infield grass, leaped from the window ledge and proceeded to take turns with his Evernham Motorsports crew rolling around and tackling one another.

The victory was Mayfield’s fifth in 386 starts dating to 1993.

Chevrolet driver Scott Riggs played the same strategy into a second-place finish, the best of his 57-race career, nearly 2 seconds behind.

Matt Kenseth, the 2003 series champion from Cambridge, Wis., ended up third in a Ford, another 4 seconds back, unable to regain the ground he lost while stopping for gas and right-side tires on the 181st of 200 laps.

Carl Edwards, one of Kenseth’s Roush Racing teammates, finished fourth and championship leader Tony Stewart fifth, both after pit stops in the final 10 laps.

“I think we did the right thing,” Kenseth said. “We beat all the cars that got tires on that caution or did the gas-and-go thing. We made up enough time on two tires to pass Carl at the end, which I was thinking was for the win until I found out there were two more guys out there.”

The winning move played out during the last of seven caution periods, when a tire went down on Stuart Kirby’s car and he slid into Travis Kvapil on the 142nd lap.

Knowing that another tank of gas still wouldn’t carry them to the finish, the top three – Kurt Busch, Kenseth and Mark Martin – stayed on the track to hold their positions. The rest of the lead-lap drivers came in when the pits opened, and Mayfield, Riggs and a few others returned to top off their tanks at the end of the long caution period.

“Was it the best car? Absolutely not,” said Slugger Labbe, Mayfield’s crew chief, who made the call. “When you’re behind, you’ve got to take gambles.”

The gamble only paid, though, for those who made it to the finish without running out of gas. Mayflield and Riggs did; Michael Waltrip (27th) and Tony Raines (31st) did not.

Kenseth, meanwhile, had no idea what strategy was playing out, first behind him and then ahead of him.