NASCAR Winston Cup Series Notes (Week of August 25)
27 August 1997
NASCAR Winston Cup Series Notes of Interest Week of August 25, 1997 DAYTONA BEACH, FL - Dale Jarrett led the most laps Saturday night. It marked the seventh time in 1997 he has done so in a NASCAR Winston Cup race. - Steve Grissom's fifth-place finish was his second top-10 in the last three races and has helped him move from 28th to 24th in the standings during that period. Grissom, jumped three of those spots Saturday. - Morgan Shepherd has dropped from 25th to 35th in the standings in the last six races. - Exactly one-third (10) of the top 30 in the driver's standings are 30 points or less behind the driver in front of them. TOP 10 - TENTH: Ricky Rudd's average finish in the three races since winning the Brickyard 400 is 29.33. - NINTH: Bill Elliott's 16th-place finish Saturday night at Bristol broke the string of consecutive top-10 finishes at five. - EIGHTH: Ted Musgrave's 15th-place finish Saturday night was his ninth top-15 finish in the last 11 races. - SEVENTH: Bobby Labonte's eighth-place finish Saturday was his ninth of 11th or better in the last 11 races. His average finish in the other four races, however, is 33.75. - SIXTH: Dale Earnhardt has just one top-10 finish in the last six races. - FIFTH: Jeff Burton now has 10 top-10s in the last 14 races. - FOURTH: Terry Labonte has seven top-10 finishes in the last 10 races. - THIRD: Dale Jarrett now has eight top-10s and six top-five finishes in the last 10 races. - SECOND: Jeff Gordon has 16 top-five finishes in 22 races this season. His other six finishes, however, all were 21st or worse. - FIRST: Mark Martin's capture of the point lead marks the first time he has been atop the standings since Oct. 21, 1990. His second-place finish Saturday also was his 15th top-10 and 13th top-five in the last 16 races. STAT OF THE WEEK Only nine times since 1950 has the winner of the Mountain Dew Southern 500 gone on to win the NASCAR Winston Cup championship. TURNING TO DARLINGTON AND THE MOUNTAIN DEW SOUTHERN 500 - Jeff Gordon becomes the fifth different driver to have a shot at the Winston Million bonus this weekend. Handed out by RJ Reynolds and sponsored by its Winston brand, the $1 million bonus goes to the driver who can win three of NASCAR's big four races -- the Daytona 500, the Winston 500, Coca-Cola 600, and the Mountain Dew Southern 500. The other four drivers who have had a shot since the program began in 1985 and the tracks where they won are: Bill Elliott (1985, Daytona, Talladega and Darlington); Darrell Waltrip (1989, Daytona and Charlotte), Davey Allison (1992, Daytona and Talladega) and Dale Jarrett (1996, Daytona and Charlotte). - While Waltrip, Allison and Jarrett (along with Dale Earnhardt in 1990 and Harry Gant in '91) each won the $100,000 bonus from RJR for winning two of the four races. Elliott remains the only driver to win the three and the $1 million. - Six times (1986, '87, '88, '93, '94 and '95) four different drivers have won the four races in a single season. - While it would seem odds are against Gordon, based on history, recent performance at Darlington makes him a favorite to win the race and the bonus. Gordon has won the last two Mountain Dew Southern 500s, the only two top-five finishes in this race in his career. In fact, Gordon has three straight wins at Darlington. - That taken into account, however, ponder this: No driver has ever won the Mountain Dew Southern 500 three consecutive years. - No driver has ever won four consecutive races at Darlington. - Six drivers have won this race two consecutive seasons. (Herb Thomas, 1954-55; Bobby Allison, 1971-72; Cale Yarborough, 1973-74; David Pearson, 1976-77; Dale Earnhardt, 1989-90 and Jeff Gordon, 1995-96). - This race has not been won from the Busch Pole since Dale Earnhardt did so in 1990. - Only 18 of 87 times in history has a winner at Darlington started on the inside of the front row. - Dale Earnhardt has seven top-five finishes in the last 10 Mountain Dew Southern 500s. - Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt are the only two drivers with more than one top-five finish in this race in the last three years. By NASCAR Public Relations
