The drivers of 2000

Bobby Labonte was born May 8, 1964, in Corpus Christi, Texas, and in 2000 he drove the No. 18 for Joe Gibbs Racing. He won four races: Rockingham in February, the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis in August, the Southern 500 at Darlington in September and Charlotte in October. What set the season apart was the finishing. Labonte posted 19 top-five and 24 top-ten results in 34 starts and, according to his Wikipedia article, became the second driver in NASCAR history to win the championship without a single DNF, the first having been Cale Yarborough in 1977; no champion has matched it since. His final margin over Dale Earnhardt was 265 points, 5130 to 4865. Labonte's older brother Terry had won the title in 1996, which makes the Labontes one of only two pairs of brothers to both win Cup championships, the Busch brothers being the other. Bobby Labonte entered the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2020, and in 2023 was named among NASCAR's 75 Greatest Drivers. Two of his poles show up in this archive, at the Kmart 400 at Michigan and the Global Crossing @ The Glen, and his teammate's name appears as the winner at Dover, Michigan, New Hampshire and Martinsville.

Ralph Dale Earnhardt was born April 29, 1951, in Kannapolis, North Carolina. By 2000 he had seven Winston Cup championships (1980, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1994), a record he shared with Richard Petty, and the black No. 3 Chevrolet he drove for Richard Childress Racing, with its GM Goodwrench sponsorship, was among the most recognized cars in American motorsport. The nicknames were the Intimidator and the Man in Black. The 2000 season came after neck surgery, and it was a strong one. He won the Cracker Barrel 500 at Atlanta on March 12 by 0.010 seconds over Bobby Labonte, and at Talladega on October 15 he came from 18th position in the final four laps to win the Winston 500, his tenth victory at that track. He finished second in points.

Earnhardt died on February 18, 2001, on the final lap of the Daytona 500, after contact with Sterling Marlin sent his car into Ken Schrader and then into the outside wall. The medical finding was a basilar skull fracture. He was 49. The crash led to safety changes across NASCAR, including the later requirement that drivers wear the HANS head-and-neck device. Earnhardt was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in its first class in 2010. For the purposes of this archive, 2000 was his last complete season, and the practice sheets from that year record him as one more driver in the garage, working on a car.

The 2000 rookie class produced two winners and a close vote. Dale Earnhardt Jr., born October 10, 1974, arrived in the No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet of Dale Earnhardt Inc. after back-to-back Busch Series championships in 1998 and 1999. He won the DirecTV 500 at Texas in his twelfth Cup start, which set the modern-era record for fewest starts before a first victory, then won the Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond on May 6, a race in this archive. Two weeks later he became the first rookie to win The Winston, the non-points all-star race at Charlotte. His points finish was 16th, with two wins, three top-fives and five top-tens. Matt Kenseth, born March 10, 1972, in Cambridge, Wisconsin, drove the No. 17 DeWalt Ford for Roush Racing. His win came in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte on May 28, and he remains the only rookie to have won that race. Kenseth finished 14th in points with 11 top-ten results, and took the Raybestos Rookie of the Year award over Earnhardt Jr. by what the season article calls a narrow margin. Dave Blaney, 31st in points, was third among the rookies.

• Dale Earnhardt Jr.: first win at Texas, April 2, in his 12th start; second at Richmond, May 6; The Winston, May 20; 16th in points.
• Matt Kenseth: Coca-Cola 600, May 28; 14th in points; 2000 Rookie of the Year.
• Kenseth later won the 2003 championship with one victory in 36 races, a result that pushed NASCAR toward the Chase format in 2004. He entered the Hall of Fame in 2023.

Tony Stewart, born May 20, 1971, in Columbus, Indiana, had been Rookie of the Year in 1999 with a record three wins. In 2000, in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Pontiac, he won six times, more than anyone: both Dover races, Michigan in June, New Hampshire in July, Martinsville in October and the season's next-to-last race at Homestead. Four of those six are in this archive. A run of DNFs kept him sixth in the standings while his teammate took the title. Stewart would win championships in 2002, 2005 and 2011.

Jeff Burton, born June 29, 1967, in South Boston, Virginia, drove the No. 99 Roush Racing Ford and finished third in points, his best result with the team. He won at Las Vegas in March, the Pepsi 400 at Daytona on July 1, the Dura Lube 300 at New Hampshire on September 17, where he led every one of the 300 laps under restrictor plates, and Phoenix on November 5. His brother Ward Burton won at Darlington that spring and finished tenth in points. One small disagreement in the sources: the season article's standings table gives Jeff Burton 4841 points, 289 behind Labonte, while his own biography article says he trailed by 294.

Rusty Wallace, born August 14, 1956, in Arnold, Missouri, was the 1989 champion, a title he took from Earnhardt by twelve points at the Atlanta finale. In 2000 he drove the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford for Penske Racing and won four races: Bristol on March 26, Pocono on July 23, Michigan on August 20 and Bristol again on August 26. He also started from the pole at five of the eleven archived races, at Richmond, Dover, New Hampshire, Bristol and Phoenix. He finished seventh in points. Wallace retired with 55 Cup wins and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2013. Jeff Gordon, born August 4, 1971, entered 2000 as a three-time champion (1995, 1997, 1998) in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, and the year was one of transition: crew chief Ray Evernham had departed, and Robbie Loomis ran the box in 2000. Gordon won at Talladega in April, Sonoma in June and Richmond in September and finished ninth in points, then won a fourth title in 2001. He retired with 93 wins, third on the all-time list.

Points from the standings table in the Wikipedia season article; win counts from the same article's race-by-race results. Dale Jarrett, the 1999 champion in the No. 88 Robert Yates Racing Ford, won his third Daytona 500 in February and the October race at Rockingham that is in this archive. Ricky Rudd reached fifth without a win. The season ran 34 points races from the Daytona 500 on February 20 to the NAPA 500 at Atlanta on November 20, where Jerry Nadeau passed Ward Burton seven laps from the end for what remained his only Cup victory.

Fourteen winners in 34 races, and the champion was the one who kept finishing.