NASCAR Coverage from Charlotte May 26 & 27, 2001

Concord, NC- The front row was not the place to start from on Saturday afternoon. Polesitter, Ryan Newman led the first nine laps of the race before getting loose coming off of turn four and stuffing it into the wall. "It was just inexperience and impatience, I guess. I got a little loose and got up into the fence. I thought I almost had it saved there for a little bit, but then I ran out of racetrack," said a dejected Newman. Outside polesitter, Jeff Gordon took over the lead after Newman's crash. Gordon had a fast car, but had his car and evening ruined by Kenny Wallace when the two made contact on pit road early on. Gordon received damage to the right front, which messed up the aerodynamics of his car. Gordon was not a factor for the balance of the race.

Early on Rusty Wallace, Jimmy Spencer and Ward Burton had fast race cars. But as we all know at Lowe's you have to be able to keep up with changing track conditions in order to be in a position to win late in the race. "We took her up there into the lead early in the race and the thing got really loose on me. I couldn't believe how incredibly loose it got when the temperatures started changing," said Wallace. Ward Burton felt equally frustrated, saying, "We couldn't get the car to adjust. They were freeing the car up, but it acted like it was tightening up. As far as I'm concerned, the wrong Burton won that race because we had the car to beat." The fastest car doesn't always win, but the teams who can keep adjusting their car are usually in the hunt until the end.

With the afternoon changing into night, the cars that had not qualified very well seemed to have the track coming to them. Bobby Labonte, Dale Jarrett, Tony Stewart and Jeff Burton started making their moves to the front. Labonte led four times for 74 laps in the late stages of the race. At one point he checked out on the field by over 7 seconds. Jerry Nadeau, who had hung around the top 10 all, evening, found his way into the lead with less than 70 laps to go. By lap 337 Labonte had caught Nadeau going into turn one. Labonte made a move to the outside of Nadeau, but lost grip and spun down the banking. He did not hit anything and was able to re-fire the car and stay on the lead lap.

"I just got in there too hot, I guess, and dumped it over there in the corner. I just lost it all by myself. We only had eight laps on the tires, so that might have been some of it where it was a little bit low on air pressure. But it felt pretty good prior to that. It wasn't really 'no-man's land,' but it was not as good as the bottom was for me," said Labonte. Labonte was able to rebound and finish fifth.

For the second year in a row Nadeau was snake bit. With forty laps to go Nadeau was running in second place when his car slipped out of gear and relegated him to the back of the pack. He was able to bounce back for a thirteenth place finish. "I can't believe my luck here in Charlotte!" he screamed in frustration.

In the sprint to the finish, Jeff Burton led Kevin Harvick by almost four seconds. Tony Stewart fresh off his sixth place run in the Indianapolis 500 had worked his way to third place after starting last in the field. Stewart actually qualified 12th, but had to start at the rear of the field because he missed the drivers meeting.

"I don't feel too bad, if I could find a dirt track I'd probably go run a sprint race or a midget right now," said Stewart. "For all those people who said I was an idiot for putting people in danger by trying to race in over 1,100 miles, they're idiot's because I was the fastest car on the race track there at the end."

Burton drove away from Harvick over the final few circuits of the race to capture his second Coca-Cola 600 victory. "We need to do more of this," said Burton. We've still got some hard days ahead of us, but this is a good start."

Burton's teammate, Mark Martin came home fourth. "We had a good run with the Viagra Taurus. It wasn't near good enough, but better than we have been doing," Martin said.
Last years winner, Matt Kenseth finished 18th. "That was a good run. The car was good we just had a loose tire and had to pit under green," said Kenseth.

Just prior to the race going green, Dale Earnhardt Jr. had an interesting conversation with his crew over the radio:
Dale Jr.: "Wassup, guys?! You guys have fun alright?…whoa! Somebody just threw a beer bottle at the car…"