Dura-Lube/Kmart 400
North Carolina Speedway

Elliott Celebrates 25 Years by Finishing 25th at the Rock
Febraury 27, 2000 - Well, somehow you could tell early Sunday morning that Bill Elliott's 25th anniversary in NASCAR wasn't going to be a party. The Drive Thru Crew was in the garage around 6:30 am changing engines, after pieces of metal were found in the original race motor.

The week had gotten off to a good start, however, with Elliott turning the second-fastest speed during the practice before qualifying and then clocking in a ninth place qualifying effort. Elliott, sporting a special silver and red paint scheme, seemed ready to celebrate his anniversary with a return to Victory Lane.

Elliott looked good in the early going, hanging on to the ninth spot for the first 18 laps, when the first caution flag of the day flew. For some strange reason, Elliott and his three crew chiefs decided not to pit for four fresh tires, as did most of the other drivers running in the top 15. This was a surprise, we all know that Rockingham is about as rough as sandpaper and that tires wear very fast. Most all of the drivers from 15th on back made a pit stop.

Once the green flag flew, Elliott and the other cars who chose not to stop, started dropping to the back. Elliott would soon loose a lap, as would most of the others with old tires. Once Elliott decided to enter the pits, he would emerge to a yellow flag one lap later, costing him another lap.

With Bobby Labonte almost lapping the field in the second half of the race (only four cars remained on the lead lap,) Elliott would loose two more laps and finish in the 25th position, four laps down.

Elliott dropped from a tie for second in the Winston Cup point standings to a tie for 11th. Elliott and Terry Labonte are tied with 258 points, 82 points behind leader Dale Jarrett.

Next week at Las Vegas, Elliott is a candidate for the Winston No Bull 5 million dollar bonus. Also, Ford is still stuck on 499 wins. Wouldn't it be nice to see Awesome Bill win number 500 for Ford and bring home a million dollars in the process?

Elliott Rockingham Qualifying Quotes
They've had me a good car, I was 10th in the first practice and second the second practice and now we're in the top 10. I'm tickled to death. These guys have really worked hard and busted their rear ends. I said I just want to go out there and get me a good, hard solid lap in and I ran about a tenth better than I ran in practice. That's what you've gotta do, just keep digging and chipping away." DID YOU LEAVE ANYTHING OUT THERE? "I don't know. If you went back, you might have run it one way or the other, but it was pretty close to what we ran in practice. We didn't do anything to the car, we taped it up and tuned it up. I'm just ready to go race. I mean, it's the best I've qualified since I've been coming here as far as speed goes. I've qualified postion-wise a little bit better, but, still, as far as speed and where we're at...I haven't tested any downforce stuff at all, I haven't been on a race track with a downforce car. We're just throwing a lot of new stuff at it. We're good and solid in the race, so let's get going."