page_title: 1998 Pepsi 400
section_title: Race
hierarchical_section_title: 1998 Pepsi 400 / Report / Race
caption_attribution_description: English: The 1998 Pepsi 400 at Daytona
context_page_description: The 1998 Pepsi 400 was a NASCAR Winston Cup Series stock car race held on October 17, 1998, at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. Originally scheduled to be held on the Fourth of July, the race was postponed until the fall due to widespread wildfires in central Florida; it was the first superspeedway race to be held at night, and the first time there were two consecutive points-paying restrictor plate races, with the Winston 500 being run first on October 11.
  Contested over 160 laps, it was the thirtieth race of the 1998 season. Jeff Gordon of Hendrick Motorsports took his eleventh win of the season, while Bobby Labonte finished second and Mike Skinner finished third. Gordon retained his point lead on the way to his third Winston Cup championship title.
context_section_description: The race was held starting at 8pm on Saturday, October 17, 1998. Ernie Irvan dropped to the rear of the field prior to the start of the race, due to a driver change; Ricky Craven had qualified the car. Although Bobby Labonte started on pole, Dale Jarrett, who had started third, led the first lap of the race; Dale Earnhardt took the lead on lap two and held it through the first caution period of the race, for rain, for three laps starting at lap 13. A large crash occurred on lap 32; initiated by Kevin Lepage losing control of his car in turn two, the wreck collected eleven cars, including Hut Stricklin, Geoff Bodine and three-time Winston Cup champion Darrell Waltrip; Earnhardt lost the lead during pit stops under caution to Rusty Wallace, with Dave Marcis pitting a lap later than the leaders to pick up five bonus points for leading a lap. Lepage suffered a fractured shoulder in a fall exiting his car.
  The race resumed on lap 39; after Earnhardt took the lead for one lap at lap 44 Jarrett assumed the lead and held it for the next 37 laps, until pit stops shuffled the field and saw Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, and Bobby Labonte swapping the lead among themselves. Jimmy Spencer and Jeremy Mayfield each also led a single lap during the long green-flag period that ended on lap 107 when Dan Pardus hit the wall in turn two. Gordon had been leading at the time of the caution; he lost the lead to rookie Kenny Irwin, Jr. during pit stops, and Irwin retained the lead after the resumption of racing on lap 110, leading 15 laps in total until being passed by Gordon on lap 123 on account of having a flat tire, just before the caution came out once again for a rain shower.
  The brief four-lap caution saw Gordon retaining the lead; he continued to pace the field as Irwin, on lap 141, hit the Thunderbird of Chad Little, setting off a nine-car accident that brought out a caution. Gordon continued to lead on the restart, and on lap 155, five laps from the finish of the event, rain began to fall once again; the caution flag was thrown, then the red flag, stopping the race to allow the track to be dried and the event to finish under green.
  After a 37-minute red flag period, the race resumed; Gordon was able to hold off his challengers over the final three laps to take his eleventh win of the season. In the midst of the final sprint, Chad Little ended up getting turned from behind by Jimmy Spencer while in a three wide battle exiting turn 4 and crashed hard into the inside wall, failing to make it to the stripe and finishing 20th. Gordon set an average speed of 144.549 miles per hour (232.629 km/h) while leading 49 of the race's 160 laps. Gordon received $184,325 in purse money. Bobby Labonte finished second; Mike Skinner was third, while Jeremy Mayfield and Rusty Wallace finished in the top five. The fastest lap of the race was set by Dale Earnhardt, at 191.383 miles per hour (308.001 km/h).
  Gordon, who had entered the race with the points lead, extended it to 358 points over Mark Martin; nobody would challenge Gordon over the remainder of the season, and he would go on to win his third Winston Cup Series championship; he was the youngest driver to accomplish the feat. The race took two hours, forty-six minutes, and two seconds to complete, and the margin of victory was 0.176 seconds.
caption: The 1998 Pepsi 400 was the first race held at Daytona International Speedway under the lights.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image DateTime": "2014:07:04 09:09:07", "Image ExifOffset": "2142", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "0", "Thumbnail YResolution": "0", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4316", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7785", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "F99DED6482EC44999350C08418A2CA16", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}