Fans with short attention spans might have had a difficult time sitting through a typical Dover race of a dozen years ago. The Monster Mile lived up to its reputation back then, as the 500-mile distance sometimes produced races that lasted almost five hours. One of those was the 1996 MBNA 500.

Coming off consecutive victories at Dover, Jeff Gordon returned that September with two goals: to win the race and gain ground on points leader Terry Labonte. He made good on both accounts, despite 14 cautions that consumed nearly a fifth of the total laps.

“

At one point, I would have been happy with a top-10. ... Before [winning here] you don't think you can.

”

-- JEFF GORDON

Starting next to Labonte in the second row, Gordon took the lead for the first time on Lap 42. But a bad set of tires put Gordon all the way back in 16th place, in danger of being lapped.

However, crew chief Ray Evernham never panicked, making the right adjustments at the critical time. And as the rest of the field fought to find the right handling as the conditions changed throughout the day, Gordon's car was nearly perfect througout the final 150 laps.

"At one point I was worried about getting lapped," Gordon said. "At one point, I would have been happy with a top-10. We can say we've been through this before here, we can come back from this. Before [winning here] you don't think you can.

"I was searching for a place to run. But I never gave up, and eventually the track came to us."

Gordon dueled with Dale Jarrett late in the event, swapping the lead seven times before Gordon finally assumed command on Lap 449. But even though he never relinquished the lead during the final 51 laps, no fewer than four restarts gave Rusty Wallace ample opportunities to hound Gordon in the closing moments.

Joe Nemechek's crash with six laps to go set up a four-lap trophy dash to the checkered flag. But Gordon, all of 25 at the time, coolly kept Wallace at bay, winning by .441 seconds. Even Evernham was impressed by the unflappable and rapidly maturing Gordon.

"Sometimes I get a little excited, but he can take it," Evernham said. "He's so calm. He stays calm, I try to stay calm. He does a better job of it."

Not everybody was as cool, calm and collected as the winner. After leading 57 laps, tire issues wound up doing in Labonte, who finished 21st -- and saw his four-point advantage over Gordon turn into a 76-point deficit. With just under 200 laps remaining, Labonte blew a left rear tire, eventually falling four laps off the pace.

"We had a couple of flats there under the green, and when that happens, you lose some ground," Labonte said. "The tire was a little different but I don't really know how. Yesterday, the Busch cars wore out tires. These cars are faster and weigh more, so I think everybody expected a little bit of a problem."

Ernie Irvan was another contender furious with the way his day ended. While trying to work lapped traffic, Irvan instead wound up in the outside retaining wall. Gordon, who was close behind, was able to avoid getting collected.

"I was just trying to pass Derrike Cope another lap down, and obviously he wanted my lane more than I did," Irvan said. "The guy's a lap down, a couple of them. When you get to them, they [should] say OK, but some of them don't. ... It's tough to get by those guys sometimes. They think they're giving you enough room, but they run you down on the apron and you slide up and hit them."

Cope ended up crashing out of the race on Lap 471, as almost a quarter of the 41-car field retired as a result of a wreck. Jimmy Spencer was none too happy with Wally Dallenbach after the two were caught up in a four-car accident on Lap 456. Safety crews had to restrain Spencer, who wanted more than a few words with Dallenbach afterward. And following the race, things got heated between Michael Waltrip and Kyle Petty.

Gordon would go on to win the next two races -- at Martinsville and North Wilkesboro -- building what seemed to be an unsurmountable 111-point cushion over Labonte with four races remaining. But Gordon gave nearly that entire advantage back in one race when he suffered engine problems at Charlotte and finished 31st, a race in which Labonte won.

Labonte then put together three consecutive top-five finishes, including a fifth-place finish in the season-finale at Atlanta, to outlast Gordon by 37 points.