Race: The return of 'Wonder Boy'
Jeff Gordon took his second NASCAR Winston Cup win of the season and closed the gap to points leader Dale Jarrett with a totally dominant performance on Dover, Delaware's 'Monster Mile'.
Th triple Winston Cup champion led 381 of the 400 laps around the concrete oval, with nobody bar Ricky Craven offering the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver any serious opposition.
In the final round of pit stops, Craven's Ford was delayed slightly and faded to fourth, leaving Gordon to fend off the Dale Earnhardt Inc Chevrolets of Steve Park and Dale Earnhardt Jr, who survived a spin on lap 178, at the chequered flag.
With rain affecting Friday's qualifying day, the grid had been decided on Winston cup points, meaning Jarrett's Robert Yates Racing Ford Taurus started from pole, with Gordon alongside. Jarrett is still racing with a rib muscle injury sustained at Charlotte, but battled the pain to finish fifth and end the day with a 50-point lead over Gordon - smaller than before, but still a useful gap with less than half the season gone.
Sterling Marlin was top Dodge, bringing his Ganassi car home sixth, ahead of the Pontiac of Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick's Childress Chevy and the Fords of Mark Martin (Roush) and Ricky Rudd (RYR).
Two early shunts had removed some fairly major players from contention, including Jimmy Spencer, Jerry Nadeau, Michael Waltrip and Bill Elliott, but with Gordon once again looking like the 'Wonder Boy' of the 1990s, it's unlikely that anyone could have challenged him for his 54th career Winston Cup.
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