Under sunny skies, trouble lurked early for the DuPont Chevrolet. The car was plain lousy on new tires and that showed soon after the green flag flew. Gordon dropped back to eighth place but rallied back to fourth. After each pit stop, the DuPont Chevrolet would go backwards in the field. At one point, he lost twelve positions in a three lap span. However, on longer green flag runs, the car would come around. When the caution flag flew with about seventy to go, Gordon pulled onto pit road and took two right side tires. Realizing that the car performed poorly on new tires, crew chief Ray Evernham made the call for only two. Like Michigan, that proved to be the difference as the DuPont Chevrolet pulled away from Mark Martin to win the race.

In the post race press conference, crew chief Ray Evernham summed it up best. "I know all those car owners are fuming saying we put something in the tires. Well, I did put something in the tires; air. The same thing they put in their tires." The decision was made because the car was tight on short runs. The only way to free it up was to take two tires at the end. When asked about the call, Ray said, "I thought we could be third and not take a chance by getting hit by a lapped car."