Nascar

Nascar

From Page 3

finished fifth at the Goody’s 500 in Bristol and then won two more. That was part of a stretch of nine races in which he won seven times. Then, at season’s end, he won three of four races to easily put the Winston Cup title on ice.

“Everybody asks me, what are you going to do next?” Gordon says. “Well, there is plenty left to do.”

Can anybody catch No. 24 this season? The list of Winston Cup contenders would have to include Mark Martin, who won seven races last year and finished second in the season standings behind Gordon. He’s finished in the top six of the Winston Cup standings every year since 1989, winning 29 races over that span.

Other contenders should include Dale Jarrett, Rusty Wallace and seventime Winston Cup champ Dale Earnhardt. And don’t count out Terry Labonte, who finished ninth in the Winston Cup standings last season, but won the championship in 1996 in a tight competition with Gordon.

As the season began, there were whispers that this might be the final season for Earnhardt, who turns 48 in April. His son, Dale Jr., is defending champion in the Busch Grand National series and plans to enter his first Winston Cup event in May, the Coca Cola 600.

Other experts suspect that Earnhardt and some other notable veterans may wait until after next season — the first year of a new millennium — to ponder retirement.

“As long as they don’t put ‘Dale Sr.’ on the side of my car,” the elder Earnhardt says.

Don’t let the focus on individual drivers and their successes distract you from the big picture — NASCAR is big, big business. And the reason for that success is the support of a wildly loyal fan base. Troubled “major league” sports such as baseball and basketball could take some lessons from NASCAR in the care and feeding of its followers.