Monday, April 19, 2004 | 9:26 a.m.
SUN WIRE REPORTS
The long and winding road that had been Rusty Wallace's NASCAR winless streak finally came to an end Sunday on a Martinsville (Va.) Speedway racing surface that showed its age.
Wallace, who had not won a Nextel Cup race since April 2001 (a string of 105 events), used an aggressive charge to pass Jimmie Johnson with 45 laps to go and won the Advance Auto Parts 500 by .53 of a second.
Wallace and the 42 drivers who followed him to the checkered flag drove through an unusual day at NASCAR's shortest track. Jeff Gordon had the toughest drive from that perspective.
The race was delayed for an hour and 17 minutes after 290 of 500 laps because of a square-foot hole that appeared in the surface of the third turn when a chunk of concrete was uprooted from the heart of the turn. Gordon's car hit the piece of concrete, causing damage to the right front of his Chevrolet and probably robbing him of an excellent shot at winning the race.
While the cars sat silently on the track under a red-flag condition and drivers rested in and around the garage area, a sellout crowd in the grandstands and a national television audience were "treated" to the unusual sight of concrete being repaired at a major NASCAR facility during an event.
Most of the .526-mile racing surface at Martinsville is asphalt, but track officials chose to put concrete in the turns 27 years ago in a largely successful attempt to deal with surface deterioration.
While the larger hole was being patched, workers also filled in two baseball-sized holes in turns three and four.
Dale Earnhardt, Johnson and Ryan Newman completed the top five. Earnhardt moved to first place in the point standings entering next weekend's race at Talladega, Ala.
Brandon Bernstein, Tim Wilkerson and Greg Anderson also earned victories in their respective categories at the $1.9 million race.
Stoffer won for the first time in the two-wheel category by beating Antron Brown in the final. The final margin of victory was .0018 seconds, or approximately six inches.
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