It came down to Sterling Marlin doing what he does best.
While his challengers were fighting each other for position, Marlin just gripped the wheel, slammed the gas and conquered Talladega with raw speed.Marlin, who earned the nickname "Second Place Sterling" by going without a victory in the first 278 races of his career, won the DieHard 500 on Sunday, his third race of the season. The Chevrolet Monte Carlo driver never got a serious challenge in the final laps as drivers appeared reluctant to veer out of the powerful draft and risk losing a top-10 finish.
"I did a lot of mirror driving there at the end," Marlin said. "You've got to do that here at Talladega. . . . It was one of them deals where they get to racing each other there at the end and let the leader get away from them."
Dale Jarrett, who scooted into the lead draft with about 40 laps to go, finished second in a Ford Thunderbird. He overtook Dale Earnhardt with a daring inside move with five laps remaining.
Earnhardt, whose seven career victories are the most of any driver at Talladega, finished third in a Chevy. He was followed by the Fords of Morgan Shepherd and Bill Elliott, who started last in the 43-car Winston Cup field.
While Marlin has shaken the second-place label, he remains a master of the superspeedways with nary a Winston Cup victory on other types of tracks. All four of Marlin's career victories have come on superspeedways.
At the same time, Marlin walked away with a big payday after being denied one the last time around the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway. Engine trouble during the Winston Select 500 in the spring cost Marlin a chance to run for $200,000 in bonus money. The DieHard victory, Marlin's first at the track, was worth $219,425.
At Cleveland, Jacques Villeneuve shot from third place to first less than two laps from the end Sunday, surviving a race that at times resembled a demolition derby to win the Cleveland Grand Prix by 1.16 seconds over Bryan Herta.
Villeneuve, the PPG Cup points leader, was trailing Michael Andretti and Herta after 88 laps in the 90-lap race. But when Herta pressured Andretti for the lead, Villeneuve shot past both of them and briefly touched tires with Andretti before regaining control of his car - and the race.