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| | Sunday, November 14 | |||||
| HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Ricky Rudd has one more chance.
The 43-year-old Rudd has won at least one race each of the last
16 years. He needs a victory next week at Atlanta to extend his
string, the longest current winning streak in racing.
Rudd finished Sunday's Pennzoil 400 in 41st position, 77 laps
behind winner Tony Stewart.
Rudd started 13th and ran near the top 10 for the majority of
the 267-lap race, the first NASCAR Winston Cup race in South
Florida.
But Rudd blew the engine in his Pontiac on lap 187, hitting the
wall between turns 1 and 2 and bringing out the first caution. Rudd
borrowed the engine from Robert Yates, who owns the cars driven by
Dale Jarrett and Kenny Irwin.
"I said to Robert, 'Just give me anything, something
experimental, even a 50-50 deal, qualifying to racing,"' Rudd
said. "The motor blew up, something let go. But that was the
reason we were running in the top 10 all day.
"I've always got next week."
Rudd has one career victory at Atlanta, winning there in 1987.
Richard Petty holds the longest winning streak in NASCAR history
at 18, posting at least one victory in every season between 1960
and 1977.
Ford carries another champion By virtue of his fifth-place finish, Jarrett clinched his first NASCAR Winston Cup points championship and became the first Ford driver to win the championship since the late Alan Kulwicki in 1992. Since then, Chevrolet had swept the last six championships with Dale Earnhardt winning in 1993 and 1994, Jeff Gordon in 1995, 1997 and 1998 and Terry Labonte taking the title in 1996. Typical day for Burton For the 14th time in 33 races this year, Jeff Burton started outside the top 15 but finished in the top 10. Burton started 21st on Sunday and had climbed to 13th by lap 25. He finished third, his third consecutive top-five finish and his 17th overall this year. Currently fifth in points, Burton has 22 top-10s, including nine in which he started from 20th place or lower. Paying the price on pit road Jeremy Mayfield, John Andretti, Dave Blaney and Irwin suffered penalties for violating the rules of pit road. Mayfield, running fifth at the time, was handed a stop-and-go penalty on lap 108 for speeding on pit road. He fell to 35th, but worked his way back to a 13th-place finish. Andretti and Blaney were given stop-and-go penalties for losing tires in the pits, and Irwin was dealt a two-lap penalty for reckless driving on pit road. Irwin spun while entering his pit on lap 59, dropped from 22nd to 42nd and finished 33rd. Green goes from first to 13th Pole-sitter David Green, coming off a career-best, 12th-place finish last week at Phoenix, finished 13th. Green led the first lap of the race but fell out of contention by lap 50. Andretti, who started second, as well as Blaney (4th) and Rick Mast (6th), also finished well below their starting spots. They finished 16th, 23rd and 29th, respectively. Familiar faces in the crowd Golf legend Arnold Palmer, a longtime spokesman for Pennzoil, was the race marshall. Jay Leno, host of "The Tonight Show," drove the pace car to lead the field before the start of the race. "I'm just sitting here quiet, upright and paying attention," said Leno, a car and racing enthusiast who took several practice laps Sunday morning. Spark plugs ... Stewart, who finished 37th and 39th in his only two Busch Grand National races at Homestead, had low expectations coming into the race: "I was just hoping to stay on the lead lap," he said. ... The top five qualifiers drove Pontiacs, but only Bobby Labonte finished there. Pontiacs finished 1-2 while Ford claimed spots 3, 4 and 5. Teammates Mike Skinner and Earnhardt were the top two finishers for Chevrolet, placing sixth and eight, respectively. ... With just a few hundred tickets remaining at race time, the inaugural Homestead race was a near sellout. The crowd was estimated at 80,000. | ALSO SEE Jarrett wins Cup; Stewart sets rookie record
The 88 in '99: Jarrett's championship season
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