Stewart takes victory at Dover Downs

It was Stewart's fourth win of the season, and the seventh of his series career. Stewart's advantage over second-placed Johnny Benson with some five laps remaining was over 5 seconds. Stewart led the most laps in the event - 163 in total - all of them during the second half of the race.

Benson got around Ricky Rudd for the second spot with just 43 laps remaining and immediately set his sights on Stewart's #20 Home Depot Pontiac. But Stewart had put too much distance between them and at the finish the margin of victory was 6.752 seconds.

Stewart's crew chief, Greg Zipadelli, said: "When (Stewart) gets on rhythm, I don't think anybody is better out there."

"We were just kind of taking it easy, taking care of the car, trying to stay out of trouble," said Stewart. "It (the car) was the same car we ran in the spring and at Bristol. It works really good on concrete tracks."

Following Benson and Rudd were Steve Park, Bobby Labonte, Mark Martin, Joe Nemechek, Rusty Wallace, Jeff Gordon and Rick Mast rounding out the top-10.

Jeff Burton had a right-front tyre go down, and Dale Jarrett had problems that left him 99 laps in arrears. They finished 36th and 32nd, respectively. Labonte now has an unofficial 249-point lead over Dale Earnhardt. Earnhardt's 17th place finish, while certainly not what the team had hoped for, landed him some much-needed points, which hoisted him back into the second spot.

Bud Polewinner Jeremy Mayfield led the first lap, with several other drivers taking their turns. Mayfield's car appeared invincible after he regained the lead from Jerry Nadeau at Lap 201, but just 26 circuits later he was behind the wall with engine problems. Mayfield finished 35th.

Nadeau's right front tyre let go on Lap 252, and he hit the Turn 1 wall hard, ending his chance at a first series win.

"Those three guys (Mayfield, J.Burton and Nadeau), all three of those guys ran good laps all day. One at a time they had problems, whether it was engine problems or tyre problems," said Stewart.

"We really weren't dominant all day by any means. We were able to keep pace with them and run the same lap times they were. But every time we got really close to them we were tight.

"Then when we'd get in front of them, we were really loose with the car behind us.

"It was better for us to just kind of keep things tight and let them go on about their business."

All told, 11 cars were out at the race finish, and there were only nine cars on the lead lap. The 400 laps took some 3h28m21s to complete at an average speed of 115.191 mph, slowed by eight cautions for 45 laps. There were 25 lead changes among 13 drivers - Stewart, Mayfield, Martin, J Burton, Nadeau, Elliott, Benson, Dave Blaney, Nemechek, Jimmy Spencer, B Labonte, Ken Schrader and Rudd.




20 Tony Stewart Home Depot Pont 400 10 185
10 Johnny Benson Aaron's Pont 400 5 175
28 Ricky Rudd Texaco/Havoline Ford 400 5 170
1 Steve Park Pennzoil Chev 400 160
18 Bobby Labonte Interstate Pont 400 5 160
Mark Martin Valvoline Ford 400 5 155
33 Joe Nemechek Oakwood Homes Chev 400 5 151
2 Rusty Wallace Miller Lite Ford 400 142
24 Jeff Gordon DuPont Chev 400 138
14 Rick Mast Conseco Pont 399 134
31 Mike Skinner Lowe's Chev 399 130
17 Matt Kenseth DeWalt Tools Ford 399 127
5 Terry Labonte Kellogg's Chev 399 124
77 Robert Pressley Jasper Ford 399 121
55 Kenny Wallace Square D Chev 399 118
8 Dale Earnhardt Jr Budweiser Chev 399 115
3 Dale Earnhardt GM Goodwrench Chev 398 112
97 Kurt Busch John Deere Ford 398 109
94 Bill Elliott McDonald's Ford 398 5 111
11 Brett Bodine Ralph's Ford 398 103
75 Wally Dallenbach Rotozip Ford 397 100
43 John Andretti Cheerios Pont 397 97
01 Ted Musgrave BellSouth Chev 397 94
7 Michael Waltrip NationsRent Chev 397 91
4 Bobby Hamilton Kodak Film Chev 397 88
21 Elliott Sadler Citgo Ford 397 85
44 Steve Grissom Hot Wheels Pont 394 82
71 Dave Marcis Realtree Chev 390 79
9 Stacy Compton Kodiak Ford 388 76
36 Ken Schrader M & M's Pont 377 5 78
66 Darrell Waltrip Big Kmart Ford 313 70
88 Dale Jarrett Quality Care Ford 301 67
25 Jerry Nadeau MH2.com Chev 252 5 69
26 Jimmy Spencer Big Kmart Ford 244 5 66
12 Jeremy Mayfield Mobil 1 Ford 228 5 63
99 Jeff Burton Exide Batteries Ford 186 5 60
40 Sterling Marlin Coors Light Chev 150 52
16 Kevin Lepage FamilyClick.com Ford 120 49
93 Dave Blaney Amoco Pont 98 5 51
22 Ward Burton Caterpillar Pont 25 43
85 Carl Long So Be Beverage Ford 12 40
32 Scott Pruett Tide Ford 11 37
27 Mike Bliss Viagra Pont 2 34