Racebeat (04/14/03)
by Rich Romer

NASCAR Winston Cup: Jeff Gordon nudged Bobby Labonte aside on the 487th lap , ending a long stretch of nose-to-tail frustration to win the Virginia 500. Gordon had been dueling Labonte since they broke free on a restart with 48 laps to go, but Labonte blocked his efforts to pass on both the inside and outside before Gordon finally moved him out of the way. The bump occurred as they entered the first turn, drawing a mixture of roars and boos from the crowd of 86,000. The race finished under caution, and Gordon earned his 62nd career Winston Cup victory and first this year.

After a caution ended with eight laps to go, Gordon easily pulled away from the field, proving he had the strongest car. The final caution came on the 499th lap. Labonte, who won this race last year, held on for second; a two-tire stop that gave him the lead with 63 laps to go paid off. Dale Earnhardt Jr. led 195 laps and finished third, giving Chevrolet the top three spots in the field. Jeff Burton and Elliott Sadler were fourth and fifth, both in Fords, and series champion Tony Stewart was sixth in his Chevy. Earnhardt's finish allowed him to trim 78 points off Matt Kenseth's lead in the standings. He's now 51 back, and Gordon is third, 88 off the lead. Kenseth, who was lapped by Gordon on the 61st lap, finished 22nd.

Sterling Marlin finished seventh, followed by Rusty Wallace, Jimmie Johnson and Ken Schrader.

NASCAR Busch Series: David Green passed Johnny Sauter on the backstretch of the final lap to win the Pepsi 300 at the Nashville Superspeedway. Green won for the first time on the NASCAR Busch Series since June 1996 and has six overall series victories. With the Winston Cup Series in Virginia this week, the 1994 Busch champion also became the first Busch regular to win this season. Green led only four times for a total of nine laps the entire race, and he was running fourth with 17 laps left. But he drove his Pontiac through the traffic and worked his way up as he picked off Mike Bliss for third, then chased down Ashton Lewis Jr. and passed him in Turn 4 of the next-to-last lap. Green said he didn't remember much of the final three laps. Sauter finished 0.28 seconds behind Green. Lewis was third, followed by Bliss. David Reutimann was fifth as Chevrolets filled four of the top five spots in a race with an average speed of 122.724.

Sauter, who led 22 of the final 23 laps, said he knew then that he wouldn't win for the second time in his career because Green had the strongest car. This 1.33-mile concrete tri-oval hadn't appealed much to Green, a Kentucky native who used to race at the old Nashville fairgrounds track. But Green is happy to be racing anywhere after making only 12 starts last season. Brewco Motorsports hired Green this season to replace Jeff Purvis, who broke two vertebra in his neck last May at Nazareth. Todd Bodine, the series' points leader, was the only Winston Cup regular in the field. He started 22nd after Mike McLaughlin qualified his Chevrolet while Bodine qualified for Martinsville. But he lost position early when he slid on the back stretch and finished 13th. Brian Vickers looked like he might win his first race for Hendrick Racing as he led 30 laps despite spinning onto the grass on lap 7. But he pitted for gas on lap 196. When Jason Keller crashed into the wall in Turn 2 on lap 202, several of the leaders pitted for gas under the caution, and Vickers couldn't recover.