34th GFS Marketplace 400:For the second time this year, welcome the city of Brooklyn, in the state of Michigan, for another Winston Cup Series race.
The cars make the pace lap, until
Sterling Marlin presents problems and takes Michael Waltrip to the grass. But it does not hurt the start with the "Front Row" Joe Nemechek and Ryan Newman dividing the front row.
Each was trying to gain positions at the beginning, until at the first corner
Dale Jarrett touch Ricky Rudd and both go to the wall.
Rudd leaves with problems in the engine and Jarrett continues, but without the same speed as before.
Joe Nemechek won the "race back to the line", and in the first round of pit stops, all the cars were making a splash 'n' go and come back.
Some preferred to stay on track: Ward Burton, Robert Pressley, Brett Bodine, Kevin Harvick, Elliott Sadler and Jamie McMurray.
On the next lap, Sterling Marlin made the pit stop and restarted the race on the inside of Ward Burton.
Ward just able to open a good lead for a few laps, but some time later
Burton was overtaken by Robert Pressley. As has been normal in 2003 races, Pressley has managed some control at first, but has been irregular in the final results.
And the race began to be quiet: Pressley increased the advantage and
Marlin was holding almost the entire field behind him. But it was not so long: Ricky Craven, who was looking for a win to increase their chances in the title race, passed Pressley for the lead on lap 14.
From there, the race started to look good quiet again because Craven had a solid advantage over Pressley and the rest of the field. It was the golden chance of Maine's natural, but as always a NASCAR race was never decided in the early laps.
On lap 53, Craven still leading and the pit stops started. First came Pressley and Steve Park,
Craven and then a few more, then Ward Burton and others; a great job of Andy Petree team replaced Robert Pressley in the lead of GFS Marketplace 400. And now with a great advantage for the Tide Ride.
From there, Pressley was quiet. On lap 76,
Steve Park had problems with the engine but headed to the pit lane in time to solve it satisfactorily.
The #33 would calmly, in training pace, making laggards. The first was Dale Jarrett, followed by Casey Mears, Larry Foyt and Brett Bodine.
Pressley started another round of pit stops. In it,
a motor explodes in the middle of the front straight: is Kenny Wallace. Came with 190 mph in front of Bobby Labonte, but picked up the car properly and saw the end of his solid race because of an engine.
Laps after the case of Kenny Wallace,
Terry Labonte has problems and is also forced to abandon the GFS Marketplace 400.
Finish the round of pit stops and
Robert Pressley cambe back in the middle of drivers who fought to don't become laggards. Meanwhile, Craven and Kurt Busch battled for second place.
No yellow flag until lap 133, when
Jack Sprague receives a touch of Jerry Nadeau and going strong in the outside wall of the turns 1 and 2.
New round of pit stops, and Ricky Craven restarted first,
although Joe Nemechek was the first to see the green flag.
Craven had been leading quietly until being
overtaken by Matt Kenseth on lap 145. Kenseth would have to hold not only Craven, but also his teammate Jeff Burton, Rusty Wallace and Robert Pressley.
Craven has
taken over the top spot on lap 153, and four laps later
Robert Pressley, again, led the race, after surpassing Ricky Craven.
Second after the #33 overtake,
Jamie McMurray ended up taking a touch of Jeremy Mayfield and went to the wall of the turns 1 and 2. Another yellow flag.
Again a round of pit stops, with Jeff Burton returning at first, but because of a wrong strategy, not only him, but several others who were very close to him on the restart
had to make a pit stop.
So, again Robert Pressley returned for the lead.
Ward Burton made an emergency pit stop with problems in the rear end of the car, and then there was a big crash at turn one.
The group of cars coming off the pace was pretty together. There was a 4-wide with Kenseth, Marlin, Rusty and Tony Stewart, in that order.
Kenseth pulled in Marlin that led through the two Rusty Wallace to the wall with a top speed of 180 mph.
Marlin car could roll over on top of Miller Time and the race was over for all three. All the racecourse are apprehensive because of the severity of the accident.
More information coming after the race and be sure that nothing terrible happened with the three, the restart came with Pressley in first, followed by Kurt Busch.
Busch passed him two laps after the restart, with 28 to go.
However, both Busch and Pressley started to lose pace. In the opposite direction came Bill Elliott, who was three-time consecutive champion of this race in the 1980s. With an incredible breath,
Bill passed Kurt easily and so headed to the victory lane at MIS.
Tomorrow I post the results and update the standings. The video of the accident will be posted in the correct place.
