|| *Comments on the 2000 Coca-Cola 600:* View the most recent comment <#54> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. Jake posted: 07.28.2004 - 8:37 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Robby Gordon took over after P.J. Jones. Robby arrived late because the Indy 500 was rain-delayed. Relief drivers: Tim Fedewa for John Andretti, and Carl Long for D.W. 2. Jack Lewis posted: 08.17.2004 - 5:18 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Matt Kenseth's first Winston Cup win. Kenseth would go on to win Rookie of the Year honors as well in 2000. 3. Jake posted: 12.30.2004 - 4:36 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Dale Jr's first career Winston Cup Bud Pole. In the 2 weeks, he became the first rookie to win the Winston All-Star race. Next Thursday, he won his first career pole. It looked like he was gonna win the 600 until his tires got worn out and he couldn't hold onto the lead. I remember reading in his book "Driver No. 8" that this race finished up at 1:00 A.M. on Memorial Day. 4. Matthew Sullivan posted: 12.14.2005 - 3:28 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Earnhardt Jr. had the dominant car of the night. Jerry Nadeau was the only one who had a shot of beating him before his engine soured. On the last stop, Earnhardt Jr. got a set of Goodyears that didn't match with his car like the others did and that was enough to cost him the win. 5. Darrell posted: 03.05.2006 - 1:21 pm Rate this comment: (3) (0) Darrell Waltrip originally DNQ'd for this race. But underdog Carl Long, who was set to make his first Winston Cup start after missing the field so many times, gave up his ride for DW to try to win the 600 one last time. Go Carl! 6. Kenseth gets first win in Wins posted: 03.21.2006 - 2:57 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Matt Kenseth 2000 Winston Cup Rookie of the year & 2003 Winston Cup Champion. 7. Steve posted: 05.02.2006 - 8:08 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) It says here that Mike Bliss got the last provisional. I like Mike, since he and I are both from Oregon, but shouldn't D.W. have gotten the Past Champion's Provisional? Or was it possible to "run out" of chances to receive it? Cool for Matt, getting his first win at Charlotte beating Bobby Labonte. Interesting that all 3 Dales finished 3rd, 4th, and 5th. 8. Cary Null posted: 06.02.2006 - 3:03 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I'm pretty sure that DW had used all of his provisionals already which is why he had to buy his way in (as his brother did 6 years later). 9. Miller4Prez64 posted: 07.31.2006 - 2:02 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Matt Kenseth wins his first race in the 2000 Coca-Cola 600 and he would beat Dale Earnhardt, Jr. for rookie of the year, but go the 2001 season without a win. 10. Thomas posted: 08.09.2006 - 7:00 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) I think by 2000, you only got to use the championship provisional a certain amount of times in one season. DW had already used it 5 times by this point in the season. 11. Thomas posted: 08.09.2006 - 7:02 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Also, this race was rain-delayed by an hour midway through, thus causing the finish at midnight eastern mentioned in Earnhardt, Jr.'s book. 12. Darrell posted: 11.02.2006 - 10:37 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) I believe this was the Fenley/Bud Moore team's last attempt before they closed shop. 13. MK17 posted: 12.14.2006 - 10:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Matt became only the 3rd different winner for Roush Racing, joining Jeff Burton and Mark Martin. 14. Brock posted: 02.10.2007 - 7:27 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jerry Nadeau could have, should have won this race after leading early and being up front when the rain stopped the race past the halfway mark. The rain stopped, the race resumed, and THEN his engine blew, as Matthew mentioned. 15. BurtonRuddFan posted: 04.28.2007 - 1:19 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Nadeau and Dale Jr. seemed to have the car to beat but both ended up losing. What a good run for Earnhardt in his last 600. Too bad Carl Long gave up his ride for Darrell Waltrip. Long actually made the race on time. 16. Anonymous posted: 05.08.2007 - 7:10 pm Rate this comment: (0) (2) "I believe this was the Fenley/Bud Moore team's last attempt before they closed shop." Because of those no good, dirty, rotten big-money teams like Roush and Hendrick, right Darrell? I wish only underdogs raced in NA$$$$$$CAR :( 17. biffle16 posted: 05.18.2007 - 1:48 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) First win for a Roush driver not named Mark Martin or Jeff Burton in the Cup Series. 18. myself posted: 02.28.2008 - 11:07 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) What is it w/ rookies & the World 600? 19. RaceFanX posted: 02.06.2009 - 1:11 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Dale Earnhardt drove his flashy yellow and pink "Peter Maxx" paint job from the Winston in this race. 2000 was the only year his Winston paint job carried over to the 600 20. CHAD posted: 02.16.2009 - 5:51 pm Rate this comment: (0) (2) I THINK THE RACE SHOULD HAVE CALLED OFFICAL 21. Jon H posted: 02.02.2010 - 8:26 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Tim Fedewa took over for John Andretti at the first caution. Andretti was suffering from broken ribs he got during practice for the 600. 22. awesomegordonfan posted: 09.30.2010 - 4:29 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Nadeau would've definetly had more chances at wins if his luck held on and if he didn't get in that career-ending crash... 23. Talon64 posted: 08.18.2011 - 6:19 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This is still Matt Kenseth's only points-paying Cup win to date at Charlotte, although he's picked up 3 Nationwide wins and the 2004 All-Star race victory since then. After leading 175 laps in this race, Dale Jr. would only lead 64 more lap the rest of the season and his top 10 in the next race at Dover would be his last of 2000. And Dale Jr.'s laps led in this race is still his most at an intermediate (1.5-2 mile) track and his 5th most in a race in his career. Dale Earnhardt's 3rd was his last of 16 top 5's in 48 Charlotte starts (5 wins), and just his 2nd top 10 in 5 starts at Charlotte; prior to that he had 10 consecutive top 10's. Matt Kenseth joined Darrell Waltrip and David Pearson as the only drivers to win with the #17, and would go on to join DW and Pearson as a Cup series champion in 2003. 24. RaceFanX posted: 02.12.2012 - 9:02 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsors: #88 Dale Jarrett- Quality Care / Ford Credit / U.S. Air Force #31 Mike Skinner- Lowe's / U.S. Army #6 Mark Martin- Valvoline MaxLife / Cummins #28 Ricky Rudd- Texaco / Havoline / U.S. Marines #40 Sterling Marlin- Coors Light / Brooks and Dunn #97 Chad Little- John Deere / Future Farmers of America #5 Terry Labonte- Cherry Berry Swirls Froot Loops #42 Kenny Irwin, Jr.- BellSouth / FEMA Project Impact #75 Wally Dallenbach, Jr.- TBS Dinner and a Movie / Redcell Batteries #4 Bobby Hamilton- Kodak / U.S. Navy #25 Jerry Nadeau- Michael Holigan.com / U.S. Coast Guard Similar to the 1991 Daytona 500 five cars in this race carried special paint jobs to salute the Armed Forces on Memorial Day weekend. Nadeau had the Coast Guard car and as noted could easily have won this race if the motor had held together but Dale Jarrett and Mike Skinner both put their respective military branches in the top-10. As noted Earnhardt had the Peter Max-designed (just one 'x,' I was wrong) paint job on his car again. While it was his only Winston paint job to get used twice the Intimidator openly admitted that he wasn't a fan of the brightly-colored look he had to race, he was probably glad to get his normal black colors back at Dover in the next race. Similar to Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon and the #24 team also ran their special paint job from the Winston again in this race. Had something to do with Gordon signing a lifetime contract with Hendrick and DuPont reupping for a few more years IIRC. Elliott Sadler had a sharp-looking car for this one, continuing a trend for throwback paint jobs in 2000 the Wood Brothers brought their old 1970s David Pearson white-and-red colors back out for this race. Andretti was not only hurting from his practice crash, he was still sore from his wreck on the opening lap of the Winston the week before. 25. RaceFanX posted: 03.04.2012 - 11:47 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsor: #36 Ken Schrader- M&M's Green 26. Will posted: 10.28.2012 - 10:16 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Nadeau had a great car before his engine went after the rains. However, he did pop the wall a couple laps before the set of pit stops prior to the rain. Hard to say how much that would have affected his car. Jr. looked to be the class of the field after that. But fellow rookie Kenseth took the race. 27. Terry Maynard posted: 04.09.2013 - 4:54 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The car Jeff Gordon drove in this race was almost exactly like the one he drove in the Winston. The difference was the hood of the car. For the Coca-Cola 600, the signatures of Rick Hendrick, Gordon and Louis Savelli (president of Dupont Performace Coatings) along with the date May 24, 2001 were added. These were not on the car he raced during The Winston. As RaceFanX noted above, this was to celebrate Gordon's new 6 year contract with DuPont to be the sponsor of the # 24 through 2005. 28. RaceFanX posted: 08.28.2013 - 11:48 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsor: #5 Terry Labonte- Kellogg's Cherry Berry Swirl Froot Loops (I left Kellogg's off the first time, I'm sorry about that) 29. Evan posted: 12.22.2013 - 6:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsor #24- DuPont Automotive Finishes/"End of The Rainbow" The scheme as echoed already in comments was to commemorate DuPont and Jeff Gordon reupping for 5 more seasons as well as the announcement that Jeff Gordon would swap his old Rainbow Colors for flames in 2001. 30. Mike1993 posted: 03.20.2014 - 4:22 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) I like this race cause I'm related to Tim Fedewa. He's one of my Aunt's cousins 31. Evan posted: 04.24.2014 - 5:19 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsor Correction Winner:#17 Matt Kenseth DEWALT Tools/24 Volt Cordless System Source:NASCAR 2001 Preview and Press Guide Coca Cola 600 results, photo in bottom left corner shows the front end of the car which is normal but the actual car has tools on the side panels. The car was ran to promote the new DeWalt 24 Volt Cordless system. 32. Evan posted: 04.24.2014 - 5:42 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsor #21 Elliott Sadler CITGO Supergard/"1970s" Elliott Sadler ran this car at Charlotte to honor the Wood Brothers 1970's era and had the car painted up like the car was in the 1970's. Maroon and White. Sources:personal accounts, Jayski.com. 33. Nascar Lead Lap Points posted: 05.15.2014 - 1:04 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Owner of the #90 was Junie Donlavey 34. Matthew posted: 05.28.2014 - 11:35 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) I believe that this is the only Cup race where both Earnhardts finished in the top five. 35. Terry Maynard posted: 06.04.2015 - 5:25 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) With regards to post # 31 above, Matt Kenseth drove his regular paint scheme in this race, so the sponsor should be listed as just DeWalt. Apparently the pictures in the NASCAR 2001 Preview and Press Guide that Evan is getting his information from, do not coincide with the results that they are next to. 36. Big Mac Fan posted: 10.12.2015 - 10:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) This race epitomized Jerry Nadeau. A great racer with some of the worst luck I've ever seen. Dominates, leads 115 laps and then...blown engine. Chalk this up to the list of races he was in contention, only for something to go horribly wrong until his career ending crash. Jr. dominated as well, but Kenseth held on for his first win, becoming the only 600 winner as a rookie. 37. StenhouseFan17 posted: 09.07.2016 - 12:33 pm Rate this comment: (1) (1) Withdrew - Carl Long (qualified the #85 and turned it over to Darrell Waltrip for the race) 38. Anonymous posted: 09.07.2016 - 1:44 pm Rate this comment: (2) (1) Another example of people thinking a driver change = withdrawing 39. sandy posted: 02.25.2017 - 9:46 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) CARL long should've made his winston cup debut but he didn't because he gave it up for darrel waltrip 40. RaceFanX posted: 06.27.2017 - 1:14 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Driver Changes: Carl Long- #85 ST Wooten Ford owned by Thee Dixon Robby Gordon- #13 Burger King / Turtlewax Ford owned by John Menard Part of the reason the Mansion Motorsports team choose to sell the #85 ride to DW for this race was because the team legitimately did not expect to make the field. He team used a qualifying engine to post a quick enough time to make the grid, but in this era when teams usually changed them, they didn't have one with the endurance to go 600 miles. The #85 Taurus was an ex-Jack Roush car the team bought at auction. Long was so obscure before this race weekend a security guard almost chased him and his team out of the garage area earlier in the weekend before all this because he didn't think they were supposed to be there. In addition to driving the race car he also drove the team's hauler at the time. 41. joey2448 posted: 09.06.2017 - 5:18 am Rate this comment: (2) (0) Here's a weird stat -- Bobby Labonte finished second in this race for a second straight year, and by nearly the exact same margin of victory. In 1999, Jeff Burton won the race by .574 seconds over Bobby, and in 2000, Kenseth won by .573 seconds over Bobby. 42. Nascar Lead Lap Points posted: 11.28.2017 - 11:41 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Bud Moore final Nascar attempt ends in a DNQ Rip Bud Moore 43. Nascar Lead Lap Points posted: 07.17.2018 - 11:58 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) Carl Long actually took over for Waltrip after the rain delay 44. JSPorts posted: 07.18.2018 - 12:16 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) So, if I'm not mistaken, this was actually Carl's first time driving in a Cup race since he didn't make his official debut until later in the season at Dover. I think that's similar to what happened with Erik Jones, IIRC. 45. jensenators posted: 01.23.2019 - 6:04 am Rate this comment: (1) (0) During the Truck race at Evergreen Speedway it was said that Bryan Reffner was originally supposed to run the 13 car in practice and qualifying for Robby Gordon. TV commentary said that Bryan didn't feel ready enough to do it, so they got P.J. Jones instead. 46. Bob posted: 06.01.2019 - 7:38 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Why would DW need someone to give up a ride when he had the champions provisional all season long??? 47. Corey posted: 06.01.2019 - 9:21 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) @46 NASCAR put a restriction into the number of times you could use the Past Champs provisional. Darrell had already used it 5 times by that point. 48. Larson&Blaney posted: 06.01.2019 - 11:03 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Plus Terry Labonte prolly got it since he was most recent champ 49. Corey posted: 06.01.2019 - 11:32 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) @48 Terry just used regular provisional. Anyone using the Past champs provisional always started in last. DW simply used too many at that point in the season as he had already DNQ'd the previous race at Richmond for the same reason. 50. possum posted: 06.01.2019 - 11:39 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) @47 - as I recall, provisional rules were a bit weird by then. There was a limit on how many times a past champ could take the PC provisional, but there was also a limit on how many provisionals a driver had (you started with, I think, 5, and earned more by qualifying for races). To take the PC a driver had to have a provisional available. In Waltrip's case, he had used provisionals for Daytona, Vegas, Atlanta, Darlington, and Talladega, which used up his 5 (that's 5 of the first 9 races, incidently). Later in the season he "earned" more provisonals, which let him use the PC to get into Darlington and Atlanta. Anyway you look at it, Waltrip was making a mockery of the system. @48 - Labonte had enough points to take a regular provisional, he didn't need the past champs provisional. @any number of earlier comments - to be clear, Long didn't "give up" his ride to Waltrip. He sold it to Waltrip, which is what small dollar teams do when a big sponsor team needs it. 51. Darrell posted: 06.01.2019 - 12:33 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The rule was everyone started the season with 4 provisionals. After 8 races, you got another one. I believe the maximum a team could get was 4 as well, and teams in the top-25 in owner's points were never charged for a provisional. It was set by owner points, not driver points. 52. Darrell posted: 09.22.2019 - 9:42 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Todd Bodine practiced both the No. 43 and No. 60 cars in relief for John Andretti and Geoffrey Bodine. 53. SweetRich posted: 03.11.2020 - 2:22 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The commentators for the race were Allen Bestwick, Buddy Baker and Dick Berggren. The pit road reporters were Marty Snider, Mike Massaro and Mike Hogewood. And The studio hosts were Ken Squier and Jim Huber. 54. Mile501 posted: 02.26.2021 - 3:38 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Over 20 years later, after he has (as far as we know) retired from the sport, Matt Kenseth remains the only rookie to have ever won the World/Coca-Cola 600. And it wasn't a fluke, either. He struggled a bit early, but ran in the top 5 throughout the second half of this race and took the lead on track when it mattered most. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: