Burtons Make It a Family Affair

LAS VEGAS —  Two brothers, Jeff and Ward Burton, racing side by side around Las Vegas Motor Speedway’s 1.5-mile tri-oval for lap after lap, gave a record Nevada crowd of 135,000 something to cheer about Sunday in the Las Vegas 400 Winston Cup race.

Jeff Burton, the younger at 31, had too much power in his Jack Roush-built Ford Taurus for his brother’s Pontiac Grand Prix over the final few laps and won by 1.07 seconds. It kept Roush’s record intact at Las Vegas. Mark Martin won for him in last year’s inaugural.

“You don’t want your brother to beat you, but if you have to lose, you want to lose to your brother,” said Ward, 37, who led as late as lap 257 in the 267-lap race. It was the first time the brothers finished one-two in a Winston Cup race.

Jeff Gordon, the defending Winston Cup champion, finished third after his Chevrolet Monte Carlo was not up to catching the Burton brothers.

The defining moments of the 2-hour 54-minute race came between laps 254 and 257 when the Burtons fought for the lead, Jeff on the high side and Ward down low, racing as a tandem, inches apart, at speeds approaching 160 mph.

“Any time you’re racing anyone for the lead in a Winston Cup race, it’s pretty exciting, but when it’s your brother, it’s very special,” said Jeff after accepting a winner’s check for $598,409. “It was awful stressful, though. I’m a big fan of Ward Burton’s, I want Ward to do well and to sit there and have to beat him is really hard.”

Both brothers said they did not give an inch even though it was their brother in the other car.

Said Ward: “I even thought about moving him up a little higher, to be honest with you. I knew if I did one of us wasn’t going to make it out of the corner. When Jeff got to the low side of me in [turn] one and then I got him loose by passing him on the outside, I saw that my car was better on the outside right then. He taught me something, so I moved up higher.”

Said Jeff: “The first couple of laps we were side by side I didn’t drive hard enough and I said to myself, ‘You’ve got to drive harder,’ and I started to drive it a little bit harder. I was relieved when I was able to clear him because I didn’t want to run 12 laps like that and I didn’t want Jeff Gordon to catch us. The first thing I could see was the third-place car catching us and making it three-wide and messing us up, so I wanted to get away. I felt like we had the best car.”

The brothers dominated the race, Jeff leading for 111 laps and Ward for 71, more than any other drivers.

The Burtons have raced one another before, but not at this level and not with the same intensity.

“Ward and I finished first and second in a Busch race in 1993 at Myrtle Beach [S.C.] and I won that one,” Jeff said. “That was different because Ward missed a shift with like two laps to go and I was able to win. It wasn’t side by side, like this one. I guess when we were younger, we had side by side battles that didn’t turn out so pretty.”

After finishing 39th two weeks ago in the North Carolina 400 at Rockingham, Gordon said he was elated with his third place finish.

“To come out of here with a third, the way we were running early in the race, is like a win for us.” he said. “It seemed like we were struggling at the start, and it looked like it was going to be a typical Las Vegas race for us.

“I thought there at the end I could catch Ward, but I knew nobody could catch Jeff. He was in another zone. He was so unbelievable fast. I was just real happy to finish third.”

Mike Skinner finished fourth, high enough to retain his Winston Cup points lead after three races. Ten cars finished on the lead lap--three Fords, three Pontiacs and four Chevrolets. This was quite a departure from last year when Ford took 13 of the first 14 positions.

The 400 miles were competitive with 10 drivers swapping the lead 25 times. The winning average speed of 137.535 mph was slowed by five caution flags for 22 laps.

Two backstretch accidents knocked a number of cars out of contention. Some made it back to the track, but were not a factor.

Mike Waltrip, who started on the front row, spun coming out of the second turn on lap 118 and before the dust subsided, Elliott Sadler and Steve Grissom were involved.

Not long later, on lap 130, Kenny Irwin lost control at the same spot and hit Kenny Wallace. As Joe Nemechek slowed to avoid hitting either one, he was hit from behind by Derrike Cope and spun into Ernie Irvan, Dale Jarrett and Bobby Labonte.

“Kenny Irwin lost it and hit me in the left side and wrecked us both,” said Kenny Wallace. “That’s racing. That’s all you can say.”

Nemechek said more. “I think the 28 car [Irwin] was in a little bit of a hurry there. He and the 55 [Wallace] got together and one of the cars flew way up in the air. I tried slowing down a little, and I got hit in the rear. All hell broke loose, cars bouncing around every which way.”

No one was injured, except for their feelings.