2000 MBNA Platinum 400 at Dover

Two hundred forty-two. That is how many of the 400 laps Tony Stewart led on June 4, 2000, and no other driver led more than 49. Dover is a one-mile oval with 24 degrees of banking in the corners and 9 on the straights, and it is paved in concrete rather than asphalt, which is why the place earned its nickname as the Monster Mile: the surface is unforgiving, the corners come up fast, and a car that is a little off will eat its tires long before a fuel run ends. Stewart's No. 20 Pontiac was not a little off. From 16th on the grid he moved forward, took the lead, and held it through the cycles of pit stops that decide a 400-lap race on a one-mile track. The last restart came with six laps to go, and he cleared the field again from there. The Wikipedia article calls it a dominant performance and records it as the fourth win of his Cup career and his first of the 2000 season. He would win again the following week at Michigan. His purse at Dover was listed at $152,850, and the race averaged 109.514 miles per hour over its 400 miles, run to the full scheduled distance.

The two drivers who led most after Stewart were both in Chevrolets from Richard Childress Racing. Dale Earnhardt, who started 30th, led 49 laps on the way to sixth. His teammate Mike Skinner led 43 and finished ninth. Matt Kenseth, in his rookie year for Roush Racing, started 26th and drove to second without leading a lap. Bobby Labonte made it two Gibbs cars in the top three.

Positions, starting spots, and laps led come from the race's Wikipedia results table. The article gives no margin of victory, no caution count, and no lead-change total, so none appear here. Dale Jarrett and Ricky Rudd, fourth and fifth, repeated the pattern they had shown a month earlier at Richmond: neither Robert Yates Racing Ford led a lap, and both finished inside the top five.

The odd story of the weekend belongs to the No. 43 Petty Enterprises Pontiac. John Andretti started the race in it, but he was carrying rib injuries from The Winston, the non-points all-star race run the previous week, and he could not go the distance. Kyle Petty took over the car in relief during the race. What makes that notable is that Petty had failed to qualify his own entry that weekend; first-round qualifying had been held on Friday, June 2. He and Carl Long were the two drivers who missed the field. So Petty spent Sunday afternoon at Dover driving a car that was not his, in a race he had not made on his own.

Kyle Petty missed the show on Friday and drove the race on Sunday anyway, in relief of an injured John Andretti.

Relief driving is rare now but was a normal part of the sport for decades. The switch happens during a pit stop, usually under caution, with the window net down and a lot of hurrying, and the car keeps running under the number and the name of the driver who started it.

Four practice sessions ran across Friday and Saturday, and the original Racin.net posted the first, third, and fourth of them as speed sheets. Those three pages are what the Wikipedia article links to. Qualifying was split into two rounds under the format of the day: the top 25 from the first round were locked into the field, the remaining positions were set by time and provisionals, and everybody else went home. Rusty Wallace won the pole for Penske-Kranefuss Racing with a lap of 22.870 seconds, 157.411 miles per hour.

• Date: June 4, 2000, the 32nd running of the spring Dover race
• Pole: Rusty Wallace, 22.870 seconds, 157.411 mph
• Most laps led: Tony Stewart, 242 of 400
• Failed to qualify: Kyle Petty and Carl Long
• Archived here: first, third, and fourth practice sheets

A note on the pole and the result: Wallace started first and does not appear in the top ten, while the winner started 16th and the runner-up 26th. Dover rewards a car that stays good for a full run more than a car that is fast for one lap, and qualifying speed is a poor guide to who will be there at the end.