Brooklyn, Mich. – Jeremy Mayfield was happy to leave his winning car behind and walk to Victory Circle on Sunday.
The winner of the chaotic NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Michigan International Speedway blew two tires as he celebrated his first victory in nearly a year with a burnout in front of the frontstretch grandstand.
No matter. Mayfield still was grinning widely when he stepped out of his crippled No. 19 Evernham Motorsports Dodge.
“Every win I’ve ever won in this series is like that, full of drama,” Mayfield said. “Right up to the wire you never know.”
He came out on top of the chaotic GFS Marketplace 400 by running the last 52 laps on a single tank of fuel, but still had enough gas to do a slow victory lap and the crowd-pleasing burnout.
“I blew out the rear tires on that burnout and that was pretty cool,” Mayfield said. “I still had enough fuel to do it.”
Mayfield, whose most recent win came last September in Richmond, never was close to the lead earlier in the race. But one by one, the leaders were forced to pit for fuel – and Mayfield inherited the top spot with six laps to go in the 200-lap event.
The decision to pass up a late pit stop and go for the win was made by Mayfield’s crew chief, Slugger Labbe.
“Man, we had a 20th-place car and we robbed the bank,” the gleeful Labbe said.
There were seven caution flags in the race, but none in the final 51 laps.
“If there had been a caution with 10 laps to go, we’d have been doomed,” Labbe said. “But history says from lap 150 on this track stays green, and we took a chance on history.”
Mayfield said he was doing everything he could think of to save fuel at the end, but was confident he could make it.
“When those guys made that choice, I knew they were pretty confident I could make it and I was pretty confident in their decision,” he said.”About the last three laps, the motor was sputtering. I was thinking on that last lap, ‘It’s close, it’s close, it’s close,’ but we got there.”
It was Mayfield’s fifth victory of his career and moved him from seventh to sixth in the season points, solidifying his hold on a spot in the upcoming Chase for the Championship.
Many of the teams in the 43-car field had problems with cut tires or engines that overheated when windblown garbage collected on grills, cutting off air to radiators. Mayfield’s Dodge was no exception.
“It was just a cool, windy day,” Labbe said. “You could see the debris coming through the fence.”
Scott Riggs, fighting to keep his ride, also stretched his gas to the end and finished a career- high second, followed by Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards, who had been battling for the lead prior to the late pit stops.
Kenseth, who made his final stop on lap 181, charged hard to get back into contention but came up well short of Mayfield and Riggs, who finished about five car-lengths apart.
Kenseth said his crew chief, Robby Reiser, “wanted me to go after Mayfield and I couldn’t even see him. We were just hoping he’d run out of gas.”
Series points leader Tony Stewart – who came into the race as the hottest driver in stock car racing with five wins in seven starts – never led Sunday but finished fifth for his eight consecutive top-seven.
Reigning series champion Kurt Busch, who dominated during the middle part of the race, wound up seventh.
Nextel Cup/glance
Keys to victory: Jeremy Mayfield’s little engine that could. He was far from the pack most of the race, but as leading drivers pitted for fuel, Mayfield ran the last 52 laps on a single tank. It was his first win of the season.
What you might have missed: Reigning series champion Kurt Busch, who dominated during the middle part of the race, wound up seventh.
Back on track: Saturday, Sharpie 500 in Bristol, Tenn., TNT, 5 p.m.
