Today's main focus in the garage area here at Dover International Speedway continued to concern the weather. The showers that hit the area on Friday night relented just long enough yesterday morning for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup teams to get in a final "Happy Hour" practice session.

The rain returned, however, only a short time later, causing the Busch Series race to be red-flagged less than 30 laps into the battle. Some six hours later, officials called it a day and will continue that race here in the morning at 11:00 a.m. Unfortunately for driver Billy Parker and his Duraflame/RWI Racing team, they had already been involved in a multi-car accident and were in the garage area making repairs.

Although Rusty Wallace and his Larry Carter-led Miller Lite Dodge Team clocked in with only the 24th-fastest lap here in the final practice, they are confident that they have a strong enough car to win here today and record Rusty's fourth career Dover victory.

"We're good and Rusty was only concerned with doing a little tweaking there in that final practice," Larry offered just prior to the 11:00 a.m. driver and crew chief meeting. "We're pretty adjustable and that'll be important. You never know here about it turning into a fuel mileage deal, but hopefully we can stay on top of that if that's the case. For sure, track position will be critical and we have us a good spot on pit road. That will be key and we have to give him some good pit stops."

Rusty's fourth-place qualifying effort here on Friday gave the team the fourth choice for pit spots for today's race. Pole-winner Jeremy Mayfield's team chose the first spot. Penske teammate Ryan Newman starts second and his team went with the 11th spot, which has an opening in front. Third-place starter Brian Vickers went with the 20th spot, which also has an opening in the pit wall in front. That left the 19th spot opening for Rusty, Larry and crew. There is an opening in the pit wall behind and the Ricky Craven team pits in front.

Lingering showers to the south of Dover saw officials resort to a "speed-up" schedule, eliminating much of the planned patriotic-themed pre-race activities. The engines were fired at 12:55 p.m. and the cars rolled off pit road at 1:00 p.m. After three parade laps, the green flag flew at 1:05 p.m.

Pole-winner Mayfield proved to have a fast racecar as he got a good jump out front. At Lap 10, Rusty was reporting a tight handling condition.

Teams had the opportunity to make adjustments to their cars during the "competition yellow" thrown on Lap 30. Two dropped lug nuts on Rusty's right rear wheel slowed the stop to a 22.077-second visit to pit road. The end result dropped him to 31st for the Lap 38 restart.

On the return to green, Kurt Busch got into the back of Elliott Sadler and the No. 38 car spun out of Turn 2. Unfortunately for Brandon Gaughan, Rusty's rookie Penske teammate, he was not able to clear the spinning Sadler and did considerable damage to the front end of his car. The team was forced to make numerous stops under the yellow to address the situation.

Tony Stewart moved steadily up through the pack to take the lead on Lap 49 for the first time of the day. He put Brendan down a lap at the 60-lap mark. Stewart held a 6.6-second lead of second-place Mayfield after 100 laps. Ryan was third and running 7.1 seconds back. Rusty was back up to 12th and running 18.6 seconds behind Stewart.

The fourth caution of the afternoon, this for debris in Turn 1, came out on Lap 107 and tightened the pack back up. Rusty was reporting that his car was tight from the center of the turn and out. Helped by a 13.346-second stop this time, Rusty was back up to 10th.

Stewart led on the Lap 115 restart, with Mayfield second, Ryan third, Jeff Gordon fourth and Kasey Kahne fifth.

Stewart and Mayfield swapped the lead twice before Joe Nemechek's frontstretch crash brought out the fifth yellow of the race. Pit stops were again the order and a 14.423-second stop helped put Rusty up to seventh for the Lap 165 restart.

Stewart led, with Jimmie Johnson up to second, Ryan third, Mayfield fourth, Busch fifth and Kahne sixth.

At the halfway point (Lap 200), Stewart held a 2.9-second lead over second-place Johnson, with Kahne up to third, Ryan fourth, Mayfield fifth, Gordon sixth and Rusty seventh. Only 16 cars remained on the lead lap.

Gordon smacked the Turn 2 wall 20 laps later to cause the sixth yellow of the race and see an end come to his day at Dover. All the leaders hit pit road once again and Rusty's 14.022-second stop had him up to fourth for the Lap 231 restart. Stewart led, with Johnson second, Kahne third and Ryan fifth.

Still fighting a tight handling condition, Rusty had slid back to seventh on Lap 278, but was waiting for green flag stops to begin in order to make adjustments.

However, on Lap 300 he cut down a right front tire and miraculously kept the car off the wall. He hit pit road for four tires and adjustments and the 14.192-second stop had him back into action. He was in the 20th spot and running two full laps down to the leaders at the time.

Fortunately for Rusty, green flag stops started on Lap 314 and one by one, he made up the laps to the leaders.

Then the race began a turn toward the bizarre.

On Lap 316, leader Stewart missed hitting pit road and was forced to make another lap before he could pit. Ryan inherited the lead on Lap 317 and crew chief Matt Borland called him into the pits on Lap 320. He didn't get the car slowed enough as he entered pit road and the car spun rear-end first into the tire barrier at the entrance. NASCAR threw the eight caution of the day. A quick-thinking Matt had Ryan speed on down pit road without stopping and back onto the track.

Scoring showed the No. 12 car was now in a lap of their own, but that was short lived. Ryan ran out of gas and was pushed by Ricky Rudd and then Brendan as he finally made it back to the pits. The crew addressed the bent sheet metal during several stops under the caution. During the yellow, Ryan was slapped with a one-lap penalty for running the stop-and-go board at the head of pit road.

Mass confusion hit during the yellow as officials attempted to sort out the scoring situation. Finally, some 25 laps later, Mayfield was listed as the leader, with Kahne second, Johnson third, Martin fourth and Stewart fifth for the Lap 346 restart. Rusty was shown as sixth, running a lap down, with Ryan 14th and also running one lap down.

The leaders started back deep in the field, with lapped cars and several cars running on the tail end of the lead lap starting in front. That turned out to be the recipe for disaster.

Michael Waltrip got squirrelly in Turn 3, which sent Dave Blaney into a wild spin. That stacked up the lead cars and when it was over, some 15 cars were involved in the multi-car crash. Johnson's car and Ryan's car were brought back to the garage area behind wreckers. Rusty got into Mayfield and Busch and sustained heavy damage to the right front of his Dodge. However, it wasn't severe enough that he couldn't continue. Officials red-flagged the race to clean up the carnage.

The yellow flag returned some 20 minutes later and the leaders hit pit road on Lap 349. Rusty pitted the next time around and the team worked feverishly to repair the damage done. However, when he exited the pits during the yellow, a judgment call by the pit board man put him another lap down. In spit of Larry's protest, the officials in the tower said the call would stay.

Kahne led on the return to green on Lap 355, with Mark Martin up to second, Stewart third, Matt Kenseth fourth and Jeff Burton fifth. Rusty was back in the 18th spot.

But on Lap 374, Rusty cut another right front tire down and scraped the wall to bring out the ninth yellow of the race. The team made two stops under the yellow to change tires and make sure the sheet metal wasn't rubbing.

Ryan, Johnson, Robby Gordon and several other wounded cars had returned to the track in hopes of getting the most they could out of the day.

Kahne still had the lead on the Lap 381 restart, with Martin second, Stewart third, Kenseth fourth, Jeff Burton fifth and Dale Earnhardt Jr. sixth, the lone cars in the lead lap. Rusty was 17th, running two laps down.

Rusty's spotter, Earl Barban, warned Rusty about the smoking car of Casey Mears and urged him to watch for oil trailing form the No. 41 car. Officials were slow to throw the caution, but when leader Kahne got into oil in Turn 3, he veered hard up into the outside concrete. Kenseth had the same misfortune, along with rookie Brian Vickers.

That brought out the 10th caution of the race and officials again decided to display the red flag in order to clean up the track. Rusty had to hit pit road one final time before the Lap 392 restart in order to remove an exhaust strap that was hanging from the car.

Martin held the lead and took off under the single-file restart. Earnhardt cleared Burton and went after Stewart for the second spot. The two raced side-by-side for two laps before Stewart grabbed the second spot for good with two laps to go.

At the finish, it was Martin surviving to take his first win in 72 races. Stewart finished second, with Earnhardt third, Burton fourth and rookie Scott Riggs fifth. Waltrip, Terry Labonte, Mayfield, Scott Wimmer and Kevin Harvick completed the top 10 finishers. Rusty came home 13th.

After 13 races, Earnhardt leads the point standings by 98 over Johnson (1,963 to 1,865). Kenseth is third with 1,784. Stewart is fourth with 1,767 and Jeff Gordon fifth with 1,709. Ryan fell to 10th and has 1,596. Rusty is 14th with 1,505.

The NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series now moves on to the 2.5-mile triangular-shaped Pocono Raceway for next Sunday's running of the Pocono 500. That race has a scheduled 1:00 p.m. start and FOX-TV and MRN Radio will provide live coverage.

POST-RACE QUOTES:

RUSTY WALLACE:"We came down pit road and made a normal stop. We worked on our car. As I come down he throws the board. I looked behind me and the pace truck is behind me. They stopped me. I couldn't believe it. It's 90 feet behind you and there's a line on the wall. I don't guess anybody knows about that line. I've never heard that rule in my life. We had a great car. It handled really good, and then I got a set of tires on and that set was just terrible. It pushed real bad and ended up blowing the thing out later on. I hope we gained some points, but everything was so crazy I don't know if we did or not."