Richmond: Newman's sixth victory

The Penske South ace had taken the lead on the final round of pit stops, but found his advantage over Kevin Harvick in second negated by a number of late cautions. There was then some controversy behind Newman when third place runner Ricky Rudd bumped into the rear of Harvick during a late restart, sending the RCR driver into the wall, and clearing the way for Mayfield to grab the runner-up slot.

Rudd recovered to finish third, ahead of Jeff Burton and Rusty Wallace. Jeff Gordon dominated the early part of the race, but a broken shock absorber caused handling problems on his car, and he slipped to ninth. Pole-sitter Mike Skinner finished 18th.

Once again, Matt Kenseth managed to increase his already large championship despite running behind his chief title rivals for most of the night. Kenseth put in another ultra-consistent run to claim seventh. Harvick recovered from his altercation with Rudd to finish 16th, whilst a flat tyre restricted Dale Earnhardt Jr to 17th.