NASCAR Labonte's winless streak ends with Southern 500

He took control late in the race with the help of a lightning fast pit stop.
DARLINGTON, S.C. (AP) -- Terry Labonte gained a piece of history Sunday, winning the final Southern 500 run on Labor Day weekend and ending a 156-race winless streak.
Labonte took control of the 367-lap event at Darlington Raceway late in the race with a lightning fast pit stop, and went on to win the 54th running of NASCAR's oldest 500-mile race.
"This is pretty exciting," said Labonte, who stopped at the finish line to get the checkered flag for victory lap that brought the record Darlington crowd of more than 65,000 to its feet.
"It's really special for me," added the two-time Winston Cup champion Labonte, whose first of 22 wins came in the 1980 Southern 500. "I was running with Bill Elliott [late in the race] and thinking to myself, 'I hope one of us wins it because we appreciate this place more than some of the young guys do.' "
As Labonte's No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet drove slowly around the unique 1.366-mile, egg-shaped oval, his crew raced across the track to climb the fence in the tradition started by open-wheel racer Helio Castroneves.
"I'm glad they did that," Labonte said. "They won this race for me."
Last win in 1999
Labonte, whose previous win came in Texas in March 1999, ran among the leaders all day and finally went ahead for the first time on lap 335 when his crew changed four tires and filled his Chevy with gas in 13.11 seconds during a caution-period stop.
That moved him from third to first and it was no contest the rest of the way. Labonte got a great restart when the green flag waved for lap 338, built a lead of more than two seconds over Kevin Harvick, weaving expertly through lapped traffic. He beat Harvick's Chevrolet to the finish line by 1.651 seconds -- about 15 car-lengths.
"Terry and I were pretty much the same speed," Harvick said. "I think everybody is happy to see him win. If there's anybody that should win the last Southern 500 on Labor Day, it's somebody like Terry Labonte, who is a legend in our sport."
The holiday tradition will be no more in 2004, with the Labor Day weekend race date going to California Speedway. The Southern 500 is moving to November, possibly under the lights, at stock car racing's oldest venue.
Despite its historic significance, Sunday's race was hardly a classic.
Ten caution flags
There were 10 cautions, including two multi-car crashes on the treacherous, misshapen oval. The most dominating driver, Ryan Newman, self-destructed, and the finish of the race was a far cry from the March race in which Ricky Craven beat Kurt Busch by inches in a fender-banging, side-by-side run to the checkered flag.
Jimmie Johnson finished a distant third, followed by rookie Jamie McMurray, three-time Southern 500 winner Elliott and Jeremy Mayfield.
Series leader Matt Kenseth ran in the top 10 for a while, but finished 14th. Runner-up Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished 25th, nine laps off the pace. His deficit increased from 351 points to a whopping 389 with 11 races remaining.
Newman started from the pole and was dominating at times, leading a race-high 120 laps, until he made an uncharacteristic mistake. He was leading before making what appeared to be a routine pit stop during a caution period on lap 229.
Newman's engine stalled, and his crew worked to near exhaustion in the smothering heat, trying repeatedly to push-start the No. 12 Dodge. After Newman lost seven laps, last year's top rookie realized he had somehow hit the kill switch on the steering column.
He wound up 23rd, eight laps behind Labonte.