Illustrating the hard driving that earned him seven
Winston Cup championships, Dale Earnhardt wiped away -
at least for one weekend - the critics of his
sport with a spectacular photo-finish victory
over Bobby Labonte in Sunday's Cracker Barrel 500
at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

In a race featuring 30 lead changes among 17 drivers,
Earnhardt took the lead on Lap306 of the 325-lap race
and held off repeated challenges by Labonte -
including two attempts by the driver
of the No.18 Pontiac in the final 10 laps.

On the final lap, Labonte - who had won four of the
past seven Atlanta races - came off Turn4 alongside
Earnhardt and they crossed the finish line side-by-
side. But it was Earnhardt who was awarded the win by
a scant .010 seconds - among the closest finishes in
NASCAR history.

"It definitely wasn't a boring race," Earnhardt
gleemed following his record ninth at Atlanta.

Defending Winston Cup champion Dale Jarrett, Jimmy
Spencer and other drivers had complained over the
weekend of the media's reporting about the lack of
lead changes and side-by-side competition in the
season's first three races.

Earnhardt came to Victory Lane Sunday as if in answer
to NASCAR's prayers.

"I was racing for all I could get and for all it would
do," he said. "I was just driving the car as hard as I
could go and giving it everything I had. It was just
that time of day. It wasn't time to take it easy.

"I held (Labonte) off. It sort of seemed he was
waiting, biding his time. Sure enough, he made his run
there on the last lap and got close to beating us."

Earnhardt's win wasn't the only good news for
Chevrolet, whose drivers were allowed by NASCAR to
extend their air dams by two inches last week in an
effort to correct what the Chevrolet contingent
contended was an aerodynamic disadvantage in the 2000
Monte Carlo.

Aside from Earnhardt, four other Chevrolets finished
in the top 10. In the season's first three races,
Chevrolet had seven top-10 finishes.

The closest Ford Sunday belonged to Mark Martin, who
finished third. Steve Park was fourth and Joe Nemechek
rounded out the top five. Defending Winston Cup c
hampion Dale Jarrett, who started from the pole, was
involved in a pit-road accident and also had engine
problems and finished 36th.

Earnhardt, who moved to third in the series points
behind leader Labonte and Martin, said Sunday's win
would not have been possible without NASCAR's rule
change.

"NASCAR is doing a better job each week to make the
cars competitive, and I think it showed this week with
all three makes being competitive and racing well," he
said.

"(Jeff Burton) looked like he was a pretty strong car
until he cut a tire. We were racing them and Bobby and
Mike Skinner and everybody.

"It was pretty competitive I thought."

Much of the race was dominated by Skinner, Earnhardt's
teammate at Richard Childress Racing. Skinner led 191
of the 325 laps and looked like the driver to beat.
But he blew his engine on Lap306.

Labonte was the only other driver able to contend with
Earnhardt as the laps wound down.

"We had a good run. Mike Skinner was probably the
best. Earnhardt was probably next until Mike blew up
and then definitely Dale was the one to beat after
that," Labonte said. "I knew he was going to go high
(on the last lap) because I had been running up there
and it was just kind of how the trend had been going
all day.

"I had no option but to go low. I didn't even figure
I'd get close to his rear bumper to be honest with
you. When it stuck I got back in the gas as hard as I
could and just used up all the race track I could
to get down to the start-finish line as fast as I
could.

"I came up about two inches too short, whatever you
want to call it."

The Fords of Burton and Jarrett had won two of the
season's first three races. Sunday, there were two
other Fords in the top 10 besides Martin and one of
those - Bill Elliott's - did not finish on the lead
lap.

So did the good performance by Chevrolets, the number
of lead changes and the close finish make competitive
racing?

"That means coincidence," Martin said. "That's what
that means." "NASCAR is doing a better job each week
to make the cars competitive, and I think it showed
this week with all three makes being competitive and
racing well. "(Jeff Burton) looked like he was a
pretty strong car until he cut a tire. We were racing
them and Bobby (Labonte) and Mike Skinner and
everybody."