|| *Comments on the 2001 Mountain Dew Southern 500:* View the most recent comment <#24> | Post a comment <#post> Tweet 1. MASH_guy posted: 08.15.2005 - 5:01 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) No less than three crashes happened in the final twenty laps, all involving then-top 10 cars. Among them were: Robert Pressley spun hard into the inside frontstretch wall and nearly flipping; Joe Nemechek and Jimmy Spencer pounding the wall in two seperate incidents on the same lap; and a huge wreck in turn one with two to go that drastically altered the finishing order. Through all the carnage, Ward Burton, who had finished 2nd to brother Jeff the event two years prior, took the victory. 2. brandon posted: 03.11.2006 - 3:34 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) also jeremy mayfield amacked the wall while running 2nd with just a few to go 3. Darrell posted: 04.01.2006 - 12:08 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Kurt Busch's first career pole. 4. Steve posted: 12.03.2006 - 1:21 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Tony Stewart slid underneath the incident that happened with 2 or 3 to go and picked up 5 spots. Jeff Burton was 20th and drove past all the carnage to finish 6th. 5. biffle16 posted: 12.30.2006 - 10:21 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Hang on, Tony! 6. Brock posted: 01.19.2007 - 3:21 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Ward Burton wins it just before yet another rainstorm swamps the Darlington track. 7. Brock posted: 02.25.2007 - 7:20 am Rate this comment: (2) (0) A more personal note, this was the first race my brother and I did weekly fantasy picks for. I picked Johnny Benson, but my brother got Ward Burton and the win. :) 8. Senninha posted: 01.06.2008 - 4:45 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Robert Pressley had a massive hit to the inside wall late in the race. He slapped the outside wall coming off of turn four and Terry Labonte clipped him sending Robert into the inside wall flush with the right side of the car. The impact lifted the car onto two wheels as it spun to a stop. Robert quickly got out of the car and walked to the pit wall where he collapsed, apparently from having the wind knocked out of him. He was quickly tended to by crew members of his team and the #81 team. 9. Mr. Big posted: 05.26.2008 - 12:15 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sterling was 5th or 6th before he got caught up in the late wreck. Great job by Ward, and a nice top 10 for Ken Schrader. 10. Schafe posted: 06.02.2008 - 4:07 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) *#55, Senninha. 11. myself posted: 08.19.2009 - 12:21 pm Rate this comment: (0) (1) Why/how did Ward Burton fall of the racing map? 12. Steve posted: 01.21.2010 - 2:53 am Rate this comment: (1) (2) NA$CAR, or at least Brian France, didn't like the series' Soueastern image anymore and preceded to change its environment. Drivers like Ward Burton were no longer appealing to the car owners. Never mind that he won the Southern 500 AND the Daytona 500. I think Elliott, Gordon, and Johnson are the only active drivers who have done that. 13. Cooper posted: 06.02.2011 - 1:14 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sterling Marlin and the #40 team did not run a Target car in this race. They ran their normal Coors Light Silver Bullet paint scheme. 14. Anonymous posted: 03.07.2012 - 7:52 pm Rate this comment: (2) (0) Casey Atwood's #19 was the Dodge Dealers / UAW / Mountain Dew car, Bill Elliott just had his normal #9 Dodge Dealers / UAW car. This was the start of an ongoing trend for the #19 to run a Mountain Dew sponsored car in the Southern 500, even after Jeremy Mayfield took over the following year the tradition continued though the termination of the fall Southern 500 in 2004. The promotion was tied into Mountain Dew's sponsorship not of the #19 car but of its pit crew which was dubbed "The Dew Crew." The Dew Crew did a funny commerical for thier launch in 2001 which featured Casey Atwood pitting his green-and-red #19 Dodge from this race only to have his pit crew jump over the wall and run past him to get the Dew on the other side of pit road. Atwood ended the ad saying "You boys better not do this on Sunday." 15. RaceFanX posted: 08.19.2012 - 9:28 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsor: #9 Bill Elliott- Dodge 'Grab Life by the Horns' / UAW Well I was wrong, Bill didn't have his normal colors, they reused the 'Grab Life by the Horns' paint job promoting Dodge trucks from MIS. 16. rateus posted: 11.05.2013 - 10:16 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) To the back - Kenny Wallace (driver change), subbing for Steve Park after his Busch race crash. 17. Anonymous posted: 12.24.2013 - 11:16 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jason Leffler subbed for Buckwheat after the Compton wreck. I guess Roy Jones had heatstroke that day. 18. Eric posted: 04.23.2015 - 6:48 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) How Ward Burton fell off the map was a couple things. Ward made the mistake of being too loyal to Bill Davis and his career went down when Bill Davis did as a result. Bill Davis Racing as a cup organization never recovered from leaking information from Dodge to Toyota. Ward should have left Bill sooner than 2003 though because Bill wasn't a great ride. The other problem was Ward's age after he left Bill Davis. Ward was 42 when Changed rides after the 2003 Martinsville race. Sponsors wanted younger drivers. Matter of fact I recalled Ward Burton almost went to high profile organization after he got released from Haas, but he didn't get it due to the Sponsor not liking his drawl and his age. I think it was RCR, but I am not 100 percent sure anymore. 19. Windows Millennium Edition posted: 04.09.2016 - 2:11 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Sponsor updates: #29 GM Goodwrench Service Plus #20 Home Depot/RIDGID #18 Interstate Batteries/MBNA #19 Mountain Dew/Dodge Dealers #96 McDonald's Drive Thru 20. Unser1 posted: 04.09.2016 - 4:45 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) UAW was still on the #19, not on the hood though. 21. nascarman posted: 12.09.2016 - 4:58 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) Driver Change 1 / Steve Park / Pennzoil / Dale Earnhardt Inc / Chevy 22. 18fan posted: 01.27.2017 - 2:17 am Rate this comment: (0) (0) Jeff Burton was a lap down when the carnage started. He got his lap back on the Spencer/Hornaday/Nemechek caution, then missed the big wreck to finish 6th. 23. Chad posted: 03.19.2018 - 9:08 pm Rate this comment: (1) (0) One of the best races in Nascar history. Exemplified a great season. Lots of great racing, bumping and rubbing, pit stop battles, lead changes, crashes, and surprises... and best of all, a unique set of drivers battling it out. Not like recent years where the top 10 are the much more similar each week, each month, each year. No aero push hurting the racing like it did just two years later at this race. With 10 or 11 laps to go, Blaney passed 2 or 3 cars by going three wide ... at Darlington! Did Dodge have an unfair advantage in aero over the others? Because Dodge cars were a lot better at +1 mile tracks than short tracks. 24. SweetRich21/43 posted: 07.31.2020 - 4:29 pm Rate this comment: (0) (0) The commentators were Allen Bestwick, Benny Parsons and Wally Dallenbach. The pit road reporters were Bill Weber, Matt Yocum, Marty Snider and Dave Burns. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *Post a comment:* Your comment may not appear immediately - all comments must be approved by the moderator. Name: Comment: