Burton perfect at Loudon.

If NASCAR ever needed something to move conversation away from the safety issues at the New Hampshire International Speedway it was Jeff Burton's perfect display in the Dura Lube 300.

Perfection is a term that is hard to apply accurately to a single drive, but Jeff Burton has fully deserved the accolade after he held off Championship leader Bobby Labonte for 300 solid laps to score his third victory of the 2000 season and move into second place in the Winston Cup title chase.

Burton and Labonte started alongside each other on the front row and when the green flag fell at the 1-mile Loudon oval, Burton navigated his Roush Racing Ford Taurus around the outside of Labonte's Joe Gibbs owned Pontiac to take a lead he would never lose.

Restrictor plate engines on a one mile oval meant that racing was close, if not inspiring although the race was easily one of the most tense of the year with Labonte rarely falling more than half a dozen car lengths behind the leader and fellow Championship contender Dale Jarrett also keeping the pressure on in third place.

The first 90 laps of the 300 scheduled ran under green and it wasn't until Scott Pruett backed the Tide Ford into the wall with considerable force that the day's opening caution flag appeared. There would be six more caution flags during the course of the event although no one suffered any injury and such was the level of fender bending that no less than eight cars ended the day behind the wall with un-repairable battle scars. A further six were sidelined with mechanical problems, a reflection of the late decision to run the race with 1 inch restrictor plates, normally reserved for Superspeedway events.

The leaders all managed to avoid the carnage however and each time the two front men pitted, the crowd was raised to it's feet in anticipation as the battle of the pit-crews commenced. Time and time again Burton and Labonte left the pits together but on each occasion Burton was able to out-drag his title rival and continue in the lead.

The lack of overtaking was made up for in tension for Burton could not afford to make a single mistake as he tried to lap backmarkers. One mis-judged move would give Labonte the lead and the crowd knew it. However Burton timed each move to perfection and covered his line at each turn, leaving no opening for his adversary.

In the closing laps of the race, Ricky Rudd and Dale Jarrett made it a four car scrap for the lead with Rudd ahead of his Robert Yates partner. The race was reaching boiling point when, on lap 288 Jerry Nadeau spun and collected Rick Mast, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Ward Burton to bring out what looked to be a race ending caution flag. However circuit officials made the sensible decision to stop the race and remove the wreckage before re-starting with ten laps left to run.

This set things up for a grandstand finish and Labonte made a despairing lunge down the inside of Burton as the two charged down the back straight, rubbing paintwork on a few occasions before Burton pulled clear once more. The onslaught from Rudd also forced Labonte to pick his lines carefully and when Sterling Marlin spun with just three laps to go, Burton knew he had done enough.

Infact, Burton had done what no other driver apart from Cale Yarborough has managed to do in the modern-era of NASCAR (1972-) which is lead every lap of a race on his way to victory. Yarborough managed it twice during the seventies and Burton added his name to that very short list on Sunday.

Burton's points haul from the event has also moved him into second place in the WC standings, 168 points behind Labonte with just eight races to go and ahead of both Jarrett and Dale Earnhardt.

Rudd, Jarrett and Rusty Wallace rounded out the top five with Wallace and Jarrett replicating their starting positions in what was a very static race. Jeff Gordon moved from 16th to sixth in the early going and stayed there more of less until the end although he had to contend with John Andretti, whose progress from 31st on the grid to fifth in the first green flag run was also something special. Andretti settled for seventh while Mark Martin, Joe Nemechek and Ken Schrader rounded out the top ten.

Earnhardt battled through from a provisional starting slot to twelfth while Tony Stewart fell a lap down in the early going and never recovered, he finished 23rd.