Burton outlasts field to win Daytona 500

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- “Incredible” was the only way to describe Ward Burton’s rousing and relatively safe 44th Daytona 500 victory Sunday at Daytona International Speedway.

Burton, who assumed the lead for the first time with five laps to go after a penalty was assessed against Sterling Marlin for working on his car under a red flag, prevailed after a restart with three laps remaining that was a microcosm of the 200-lap event.

He leapt ahead and appeared to be home free when the field fanned out behind him.

But Elliott Sadler and Geoffrey Bodine teamed up to catch Burton by the end of the backstretch. The accordion effect was in evidence all day as single file lines of cars and two-wide packs never separated themselves to any great degree.

“My car ran better on restarts,” Burton said. “You’ve got to be there at the end of the race. Elliott and I have worked together real good before and all I can say is it’ll be quite a party tonight.”

At the white flag, Burton was .191 seconds ahead of Sadler as three-time Daytona 500 winner Dale Jarrett, who had restarted fourth, was spun to the inside of the race track. Burton held on in the race back to the line and was .193 seconds ahead of Sadler’s Motorcraft Ford at the finish.

The victory, the fourth of Burton’s career, was worth $1,389,017.

Bodine’s Miccosukee Ford, Kurt Busch’s Rubbermaid Ford and defending race winner Michael Waltrip’s Napa Chevrolet rounded out the top-five.

“That was pretty awesome,” said Sadler, who finished third here in last summer’s Pepsi 400. “Our pit stops were unbelievable. Another Virginia guy (Burton) -- I had to help him because he had been helping me.

			Ward Burton celebrates in Victory Lane.

“I knew when we got the (last) restart we had a lot of big name guys behind us that had been in these situations before -- they got a lot more experience than me. I was meaning to push Geoffrey (but) I looked up, (saw) 88, 97 all going around the outside and I made a quick decision.

“I swerved hard right and they pushed me right by Geoffrey. I helped Ward down the back straightaway and then we kind of broke away from everybody.”

When the final green flew Burton, Bodine and Sadler on older tires and Jarrett and Mark Martin on newer rubber were at the head of the line. At the finish, Martin’s Ford, top Rookie of the Year candidate Ryan Newman’s Ford, Marlin’s Dodge, Jeff Gordon’s Chevrolet and Johnny Benson’s Pontiac finished sixth through 10th.

“I’m not over the hill yet,” said Bodine, 52, the 1986 Daytona 500 winner who had not competed in this race since 1999 and who was nearly killed in a spectacular Craftsman Truck Series crash here that put his career on hold. “I still love this. I still have nerve. Hopefully I showed I have the skill left.”

Five cautions in the last 61 laps spiced the outcome, but none figured more prominently than the final one that occurred on a restart with six laps remaining. The nine yellow flags slowed the race’s average speed to 142.971 mph, the slowest since Marlin won in 1995.

Marlin, who led five times for a race high 78 laps, bogged down the field trying to set up a pass on leader Gordon in the single file line of lead lap cars. The field stacked up behind Marlin and ninth place Martin spun Waltrip across the trioval grass, nearly into the pace car on pit road.

As Marlin accelerated to the beginning of the chute heading to Turn 1, he and Gordon -- both two-time Daytona 500 winners -- tangled, with Gordon spinning into the infield grass as the caution flew. After Marlin out-ran Burton to the caution flag at lap 195 by inches, officials immediately red-flagged the pack on the backstretch.

“I tried to lay back and get a run on him,” Marlin said. “He (Gordon) kept cutting down and we got together. Hindsight is 20-20 and I might not have done it if I knew what the outcome would be, but I had a chance to win the Daytona 500.”

While the field was stopped for 19:30, both Burton and Sadler reported Marlin worked on his Coors Dodge, which is forbidden under NASCAR rules while under a red flag. On the run to the yellow flag, Marlin’s car showed smoke as he outran Burton with drafting help from Bodine and Jarrett.

“I saw Sterling smoking when we raced back to the flag that time,” Burton said, “so I knew something was up, there. We both knew how important that last restart was.”

Sterling Marlin heads back to his car after trying to pull his right front fender away from his tire during a red flag. Credit: AP

Marlin was penalized “to the end of the longest line” for that restart. Gordon, Rusty Wallace, Jeff Green and Jeff Burton were instructed to start at the end of the longest line in the single file restart for pitting before pit road was opened. They were all involved in the restart melee.

“I just pulled the fender off the tire, ‘cause it was rubbing,” Marlin said. “I saw Dale (Earnhardt) do it at Richmond once and NASCAR let him get away with it, but I guess the rules have changed in the meantime.”

Before the penultimate restart, it appeared with 15 laps to go Dodge Boys Marlin and Ward Burton were setting Gordon up for a two-car slingshot on the final lap. They were trying to arrange that deal on their in-car radios while Gordon led a five-car draft that included Sadler and Bodine.

The final round of pit stops involving most of the lead lap cars occurred after Raybestos Rookie of the Year candidate and Bud Pole winner Jimmie Johnson spun in Turn 1 at lap 173. Leader Busch, Gordon, Marlin, Newman and Ward Burton stayed on the race track. Jeff Burton took two tires for track position in sixth and the 12 other lead lap cars took four tires.

That vaulted the winner, who was running 13th and had only been in the top-10 for one of the quarterly rundowns, into fifth. Burton was third and stayed on the race track with 15 of the 17 lead lap cars after Robby Gordon brought out the race’s next to last caution with a spin in Turn 2 on lap 192.

			Jeff Gordon

Earlier in the race, what had been 32 cars on the lead lap suddenly became 18 with eight of them Fords and six of them Chevrolets when the sixth caution flew at lap 139. The fiery multi-car accident occurred when second place Kevin Harvick and third place Gordon got into a dispute over the same piece of race track.

“That’s the one downfall of this restrictor plate package -- you have to block,” said Harvick, who led the first three laps of the race in his first Daytona 500 start. “It was just two of us trying to occupy the same piece of real estate. I blocked him (Gordon), we got together and all hell broke loose.”

“That was very unfortunate,” Gordon said. “I was getting knocked around from behind and pushed and shoved. Kevin got crossed up behind Marlin and came back down across the track. I was trying hard to get out of it and let him in but we touched and it spun him.”

The “big one,” which unofficially involved no less than 18 cars -- including those of six drivers who led the race -- was the biggest statement against the restrictor plate and aerodynamic package that was put in place for this race last fall and adjusted no less than three times since Winston Cup testing in January.

It was the first multi-car incident in the race, but that might have just been luck, some of the competitors said. Bobby Hamilton, who won the 2001 spring race at Talladega Superspeedway, was particularly disgusted after wrecking his second Schneider Electric Chevrolet of Speedweeks.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. exits his car. Credit: AP

“Last year you could let off the gas,” Hamilton said. “It’s just a bunch of ill-driving race cars with everybody afraid to let off the gas because they’ll lose the draft.”

“There’s no giving it’s all take, take, take,” Todd Bodine said. “Somebody got down on the apron and the way this racing is I imagine someone put him there.”

Before 20 laps had been run, Dale Earnhardt Jr., who won Saturday’s EAS/GNC Live Well 300 NASCAR Busch Series race had cut a front tire, damaging the right front corner of his Budweiser Chevrolet. Junior fell to 40th under caution.

In the most jagged riches to rags story of the day, he came back to fourth during the first round of green flag pit stops before he cut a right rear tire, which wrapped around the rear end housing and disabled his car’s brakes. When the car was repaired, he was 11 laps down just after halfway and ultimately finished 29th.

One of the biggest challengers for the Daytona 500 victory, as well as the Winston Cup championship, fell off the race track when 2001 season runner-up Tony Stewart’s No. 20 Home Depot Pontiac blew up on the third lap. Stewart, who won the Budweiser Shootout and opening round of the True Value IROC Series earlier in Speedweeks finished 43rd.

Dave Marcis, who started his record 33rd Daytona 500, blew the engine in his Realtree Chevrolet on the 80th lap and finished 42nd.