| A
day of firsts
Jarrett wins first title,
Stewart breaks rookie mark
November 1999
HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Dale Jarrett clinched the NASCAR Winston Cup
championship and Tony Stewart proved that he is a champion in
waiting.
Stewart won for the third time in his
rookie season and his second in succession, taking Sunday's
Pennzoil 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
However, Stewart may have created a rift
with teammate Bobby Labonte. As the drivers were racing
side-by-side late in the race after making their final pit stops,
Stewart went high and brushed Labonte in the third turn. That
knocked Labonte's car out of the racing line and nearly into the
wall.
Labonte was enraged with his teammate and
radioed back to crew chief Jimmy Makar, "That little
(expletive) better run off to Ray Evernham before I get my hands
on him."
Evernham is the former crew chief for
Jeff Gordon who is heading up Dodge's Winston Cup program, which
is set to debut in 2001. Both drive Pontiac Grand Prix for Joe
Gibbs, who ironically called the race as part of NBC Sports
announcing team.
"I apologize to Bobby Labonte,"
Stewart said. "I made a rookie mistake and just drove it in
too hard."
Stewart added he had no intention of
trying to take Labonte out of the race.
"My spotter told me as I was coming
off pit lane that he was coming on the outside," Stewart
said. "I got on the throttle as hard as I could get on the
throttle. I figured I had a bumper on him going into Turn 3. I
decided I wasn't going to give him the bottom. He ran down into
the corner and ran me halfway down the apron. He did what he had
to do and I did what I had to do."
Jarrett finished fifth to clinch the
first Winston Cup title of his career. He dethroned Jeff Gordon,
who had won the last two season titles.
Jarrett and his crew chief
Todd Perrott have won
18 time since 1996. AP
"This is what we all fight for all
year long, this is the best," crew chief Todd Parrott said.
"We have one of the best race teams in the world and we have
the best driver. This is for my grandmother, who passed away last
Thursday. Let me get all this crying out of the way before I get
to my driver. I just can't believe it."
As Jarrett completed his cool-down lap,
he radioed to his crew, "This one's for Davey Allison."
Allison drove for team owner Robert Yates
but was killed in a helicopter crash at Talladega, Ala. in July
1993.
The race was slowed just one time for
caution. Labonte dominated the race until his teammate took over
late in the event, leading to some angry words by Labonte, who
finished second.
"We had a great car all day, it just
got tight at the end and we couldn't free it up enough,"
Labonte said. "When I was running, he was checked out on me
at the end."
Jeff Burton was third followed by Mark
Martin and Jarrett, all in Ford Tauruses.
But the focus of the race kept shifting
back to the incident between the two drivers for Gibbs. It
occurred after Stewart made his final pit stop of the race. As he
came out of the second turn, he closed in on Labonte's Pontiac.
The two went side-by-side down the backstretch before entering the
third turn.
That forced Labonte out of the racing
groove, where he began to loose the race car before regaining
control. Afterwards, Labonte had cooled down and was able to
discuss the incident.
"You can't race side-by-side here
very good," Labonte said. "I was on the outside and I
didn't want to be there. I wanted to be on the inside, trust me.
If the roles had been reversed, it would have been a whole lot
better. I couldn't get on the inside of him and of course, he lost
a little grip because he ran in there so hard. I guess he slid up
a little bit."
Although Labonte dominated the race by
leading four times for 174 laps, he didn't believe he would have
been able to hold off Stewart at the end.
"I couldn't have beaten him
anyway," Labonte said. "My car got tight there at the
end. It was loose at the beginning and tightened up after a pit
stop. It was my fault for not getting the car right. When you get
up there in that stuff on the outside, up in the gray, you get to
slipping and sliding.
"I went down the back straightaway
trying to kill his momentum off pit road because I didn't think he
could get going that fast any way. It really didn't matter. He
caught me and he passed me."
Stewart collected $278,265 in becoming
the first rookie ever to win three races and the first rookie to
win back-to-back races since Nelson Stacy in 1964, He also
solidified his fourth-place position in the Winston Cup standings
and leads Jeff Burton by 78 points.
"It's a great honor," Stewart
said of setting the record for most wins by a rookie. "It's
such a great honor to be a part of the series and be associated
with Joe Gibbs Racing. Bobby Labonte really helped me get into
that second car."
In 1979, Dale Earnhardt won one race and
the Rookie of the Year title. The next season, he won the Winston
Cup title. Could Stewart do be the next to follow up with a
championship?
"I'm not going to say it's
impossible, but I didn't think we'd be in the top 10 in points
this year,' Stewart said. 'We'll see what happens. In all honesty,
I would like to see Bobby win a championship before I would like
to win one myself. Bobby's been running a long time and I feel
like I've got a lot of years myself in order to get mine.
"He's worked real hard and he's the
person that is most responsible for me being here. I'm kind of
selfish wanting him to win a championship because he has given me
the opportunity to do what I've done this year. I feel like he
deserves to win the championship before I do." |
