Elliott

ROCKINGHAM, N.C. -- Bill Elliott, the winner of Sunday's race, isn't ready to talk about next season, yet.

Elliott fended off questions about the rampant speculation that the 48-year-old driver, a former series champion and winner of 44 races, is considering retirement at the end of 2003.

"Right now, I want to concentrate on the last race at Homestead and what we're going to do there, and we'll think about next year after that," Elliott said.

The Evernham Motorsports driver acknowledged that a strong finish this season, including six top-10 finishes in his last seven starts and his first win in 50 races, could have some bearing on his decision whether to keep racing.

"Yeah, it feels real good to have everything coming together for this team the way it is, and that could mean something," Elliott said. "But I just haven't made that decision, yet."

Finishing fast
Rookie Tony Raines had the best weekend of his career, starting a career-best fourth and racing to a sixth-place finish, his first top 10 in 41 Winston Cup starts.

"It's pretty exciting," said Raines, who drives the No. 74 Chevrolet for BACE Motorsports. "I probably won't realize it until I look at the paper tomorrow and I won't have to go all the way down to 20th to find my name.

"I think it's just a good, solid team effort, and that's a good feeling. We got some good momentum for, hopefully, the last race and, if we can get another one down there, it would be awesome, a good way to end the year."

Raines' best previous race finish was 14th in May at Richmond.

Spark plugs
Kurt Busch has the coveted 10th position in the points going into the final race of the season, with Terry Labonte 56 points behind and Jeff Burton 107 back. ... This is the third straight year that the Cup championship has been won by a former Rookie of the Year. The other two were Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart. ... If he does not win at Homestead, Kenseth will be the first driver since Benny Parsons in 1973 with only one win in his championship season. ... Kenseth joins CART's Paul Tracy and NHRA Funny Car star Tony Pedregon in winning championships for Ford this season.