Last man standing

Jeff Gordon wins his third Daytona 500 after a multi-car dash to the end is extended by a green-white-checkered finish.

By BRANT JAMES
Published February 21, 2005

[Times photo: James Borchuck] Jeff Gordon is waved on to his third career Daytona 500 victory Sunday.
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DAYTONA BEACH - Fans at Talladega so wanted to see a sprint to the finish last spring between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon, they rained beer cans from the stands as Gordon won under caution.

NASCAR got the 12-ounce hint and instituted a rule change to give them their wish.

More than 185,000 fans at Daytona International Speedway got the payoff on Sunday.

Jeff Gordon overtook Earnhardt on the backstretch with three laps left in the originally scheduled distance of the Daytona 500, then blocked and battled in a three-lap, green-white-checker shootout to win NASCAR's most important race for a third time.

"Knowing Junior was part of the victory, knowing his fan base, knowing his track record here, it's rewarding - definitely," said Gordon, who earned his 70th Nextel Cup win. "It felt very rewarding on many levels because of it being a spectacular finish, having to maneuver around and do a lot of things going to first, third, fourth, back up to first and getting up beside that (No.) 8 car and pulling away from him was amazing."

Gordon has won the past two races at Daytona including the Pepsi 400 in July - but had not won the 500 since 1999. He became just the fifth to win the 500 three or more times.

"I don't know how to put that in perspective," said Gordon, who earned $1,474,466. "To have two was great. One can make your career."

Oh, and ...

"Three baby!"

Nextel Cup champion Kurt Busch was second, 0.158 seconds behind, followed by Earnhardt, Scott Riggs and Jimmie Johnson. There were four lead changes in the last nine laps.

Allies changed like the leaders in the tense final laps, with Earnhardt and Gordon at times working together, against or with then-leader Tony Stewart. Earnhardt's 2004 victory was aided by key pushes from Stewart. He and Gordon drafted past Stewart together before rejoining the battle for dominance at Daytona and Talladega.

Earnhardt has seven restrictor-plate wins since 2001, but Gordon has won three of the past four to give him nine in his career.

Gordon led the lap that mattered, No.203, three more than scheduled, but Stewart dominated, leading seven times for 107 laps. The No.20 Chevrolet brought the field to a single-file restart with seven laps left after a previous abortive restart resulted in an eight-car wreck at the start/finish line. Earnhardt, who rallied from 20th place 18 laps earlier, blazed by Gordon and quickly overtook Stewart on the backstretch on Lap 195.

"I was going to push him," Earnhardt said of Stewart. "I told him at the caution I was going to push him the best I could. But once I got my run, you know, it was time for me to think about winning the race. I had a chance to be back-to-back Daytona 500 champ."

Gordon assumed he was racing for second when Earnhardt "flicked the switch" and took the lead. It was another improbable run to the front for Earnhardt, who had sunk as far back as 30th with 100 miles left because of handling problems and a pit road mishap when Jeff Burton bumped him headlong into his stall.

Stewart and Earnhardt swapped the lead one more time each before Gordon recovered with a push from teammate Johnson on Lap 198 and nosed ahead of Earnhardt in the high line on the backstretch.

Last spring, Gordon edged ahead of Earnhardt in the last five laps at Talladega when a caution flag froze the field. Because workers had insufficient time to clear the track, Gordon won under caution and a hail of beer.

This time Earnhardt, much like Gordon a few laps earlier, assumed the race was over.

"He had such a run. I was by myself," Earnhardt said. "He was going by so fast. I couldn't even draft off the side of his car, slow him down. He was gone."

Moments later, however, an increasingly aggressive battle to line up for a push on Gordon was halted on Lap 198 when Kasey Kahne hit the wall, littering the track with pieces of the No.9 Dodge.

Gordon held on through the three-lap shootout with some blocking help from Johnson and an unlikely source - Busch, who passed Earnhardt with just more than a lap left.

"I had a run on (Gordon)," Busch said. "I had that butterfly-in-the-stomach feeling that I had a chance to win the Daytona 500 - but I would not have made it."

Unable, he thought, to make a push and unwilling to drop out of the draft, he held on to finish second in the race for the second time.

"I'm really thankful he didn't go to my outside because I think he had the momentum to do it," Gordon said. "I'm a little bit shocked at that No.1, and when we came off Turn 4 I knew we had it."

[Last modified February 21, 2005, 04:52:27]