Labor Day 2001
By Maryann Toomey
August 29, 2007

It rained.  It stopped raining.  It rained. It stopped raining.  So it was water instead of dramadripping from the finish of the 50th running of the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.  The rain didn't take anything away from the win and it felt like a million bucks to Jeff Burton.  Actually, it felt like $1,148.170 to Burton.  Back in the days of "The Winston Million", Burton won another 1 million for Phyllis Farmer of Hillsboro, Mo., a 59 year old race fan who had to wait out a pair of rain delays before the remnants of Hurricane Dennis finally ended the day around 6:20pm, shortening the race to 270 laps.
It was the second time that year that Burton had won a rain-shortened Darlington race.  Burton won the TranSouth 400 on March 21, 2001 despite having wrecked his Ford as the yellow flag came out because of rain.
Just months later, Burton was in the lead when the first shower of the Southern 500 started about 3:40pm., bringing out a yellow flag on lap 230.  Burton and most of the other lead lap cars pitted, but Terry Labonte and Jimmy Spencer stayed out hoping for a downpour.  Labonte relented and stopped on Lap 237, but Spencer held out until the race was red flagged just after 4 pm.  Spencer joked during a glorified drizzle that NASCAR shoudl call it a day right then in the interest of fan safety, but after about 25 minutes, the drivers were summoned to their cars and went backon the track.  Spencer pitted the first time by, giving Burton the lead when the green flag flew again on Lap 250.  The rain held off for exactly 7 laps.  After one more rain delay, the Burton brothers held on to finish first and second for the second time that year, in the same order they wound up in Las Vegas.  They were joined by Mayfield, Martin, and Kevin Lepage, who inherited fifth when Jeff Gordon made his final pit stop.
Burton also won 1 million and the same amount for a fan with his victory in May in teh Coca-cola 600 at Lowes Motor Speedway in Charlotte.  For Burton, though, winning a race he remembered coming to watch as a lad at a track he still deeply respects means more than any winner's share ever could.  The driver knew it was hard to win at Darlington.  Even in the rain.

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