2002 Mountain Dew Southern 500

2002 Mountain Dew Southern 500

Race details
Race 25 of 36 in the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
2002 Southern 500 program cover
Date	September 1, 2002 (2002-09-01)
Official name	Mountain Dew Southern 500
Location	Darlington Raceway, Darlington County, South Carolina
Course length	1.366 miles (2.198 km)
Distance	367 laps, 501.322 mi (806.800 km)
Weather	Temperatures hovering around 80.6 °F (27.0 °C); wind speeds gusting up to 11.3 miles per hour (18.2 km/h) [1]
Average speed	118.617 miles per hour (190.896 km/h)
Pole position
Driver	Sterling Marlin	Chip Ganassi Racing
Most laps led
Driver	Jeff Gordon	Hendrick Motorsports
Laps	125
Winner
No. 24	Jeff Gordon	Hendrick Motorsports
Television in the United States
Network	Turner Network Television
Announcers	Allen Bestwick, Benny Parsons and Wally Dallenbach Jr.

The 2002 Mountain Dew Southern 500, the 53rd running of the event, was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series race held on September 1, 2002 at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina. Contested over 367 laps on the 1.366-mile (2.198-kilometre) speedway, it was the twenty-fifth race of the 2002 NASCAR Winston Cup Series season. Jeff Gordon of Hendrick Motorsports won the race.

Background

Darlington Raceway, nicknamed by many NASCAR fans and drivers as "The Lady in Black" or "The Track Too Tough to Tame" and advertised as a "NASCAR Tradition", is a race track built for NASCAR racing located near Darlington, South Carolina. It is of a unique, somewhat egg-shaped design, an oval with the ends of very different configurations, a condition which supposedly arose from the proximity of one end of the track to a minnow pond the owner refused to relocate. This situation makes it very challenging for the crews to set up their cars' handling in a way that will be effective at both ends.

The track, Darlington Raceway, is a four-turn, 1.366-mile (2.198-kilometre) oval. The track's first two turns are banked at twenty-five degrees, while the final two turns are banked two degrees lower at twenty-three degrees.

Top 10 results

Pos	No.	Driver	Team	Manufacturer
1	24	Jeff Gordon	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
2	12	Ryan Newman	Penske Racing	Ford
3	9	Bill Elliott	Evernham Motorsports	Dodge
4	40	Sterling Marlin	Chip Ganassi Racing	Dodge
5	88	Dale Jarrett	Robert Yates Racing	Ford
6	22	Ward Burton	Bill Davis Racing	Dodge
7	97	Kurt Busch	Roush Racing	Ford
8	20	Tony Stewart	Joe Gibbs Racing	Pontiac
9	48	Jimmie Johnson	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet
10	99	Jeff Burton	Roush Racing	Ford

Race statistics

• Time of race: 4:13:35
• Average speed: 118.617 miles per hour (190.896 km/h)
• Pole speed: no time trials
• Cautions: 9 for 63 laps
• Margin of victory: 1.734 seconds
• Lead changes: 14
• Percent of race run under caution: 17.2%
• Average green flag run: 33.8 laps

References

1. Weather information at The Old Farmers' Almanac