Interstate team King of the pits at Martinsville.

The Virginia 500 at Martinsville Speedway marked the first time a tiebreaker criteria was needed to determine the race winner of the McDonald's Drive-Thru Pit Championship fuelled by POWERade.

Bobby Labonte's and Elliott Sadler's pit crews tied for top honours with each team's car spending 292 seconds on pit road - the least amount of time for participating teams of the McDonald's Drive-Thru Pit Championship.

Labonte's pit crew was named the winner and recipient of the $20,000 first-place check by virtue of having a higher finishing position in the race. Labonte's Joe Gibbs Racing Interstate Batteries Chevrolet finished second while Sadler's Robert Yates M&M's Ford was fifth.

Labonte's over-the-wall crew consists of: Jason Lee (jackman), Todd Meredith (front tire carrier), Mark Armstrong (front tire changer), Alan Copley (rear tire carrier), Barry Cook (rear tire changer), Jim Gilbert (gasman) and Donnie Ratledge Jr. (catch can). Michael McSwain is the team's crew chief and the car chief is Scott Zipadelli. The windshield duties are handled by Adam von Olhausen.

During each 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup points event, the participating team whose car spends the least amount of aggregate time off the race track will be named the weekly winner provided the team's driver takes the green flag at the beginning of the event and the chequered flag at the conclusion of the event.

A timing line at the entrance and exit of pit road triggers the car's transponder and records the total time spent off the racetrack.

The team that records the most standing points during the season will receive a $200,000 bonus at the end of the year. The point distribution per race is: 43 points for first place, descending in increments of one. In order to obtain points at each race, the team's driver must take the opening green flag and the closing chequered flag.

The McDonald's Drive-Thru Pit Championship fuelled by POWERADE is the largest monetary contingency program in NASCAR history and the first to reward pit crews for performance at each race.

After the first nine races of the 2003 Winston Cup Championship Michael Waltrip's #15 NAPA pit crew lead the overall McDonalds Drive-Thru pit Championship by just eight points (325-317) over his DEI teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. Robby Gordon's #31 Cingular Wireless team are third overall with his RCR teammate Jeff Green in fourth.