Check out a short list of favorites for Sunday's Southern 500 in Darlington, S.C.

	Burton

Jeff Burton
Strong performer at Darlington Raceway, where he finished in the top 10 in nine of his last 11 races; was sixth last year after starting 23rd; in the March race this year, he missed a top-10 in 11th; swept both Darlington races in 1999; after a stretch of seven races without a top 10 finish, he finished seventh in upstate New York and fourth in the Pepsi 400 at Michigan; overall this year, has recorded three top-five finishes and nine in the top 10; one of several big names without a victory this season.

Ward Burton
Defending champion of the Mountain Dew Southern 500, a win he started with a provisional; held off Bobby Labonte on lap 364 restart and went on to win under caution; also won the 2000 spring race at Darlington; holds the qualifying record of 173.797 miles per hour set in 1996; finished 37th at Bristol on Saturday night and ranks 27th in the points standings with 12 races remaining.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Got off to a great start in the night race at Bristol last Saturday, leading the first 130 laps; that was followed by a duel with eventual winner Jeff Gordon as they swapped leads twice in the next 250 laps; finished third behind Rusty Wallace; This will be his 100th Winston Cup race, with six wins, five poles, 18 top-fives, 29 top-10s and career earnings over $11 million; was fourth in the spring race but 17th in this event last year; legendary father was a nine-time winner at Darlington.

Bill Elliott
Will celebrate his 50th start at one of his favorites tracks; after 49 races, leads all active drivers with five poles and is tied with Jeff Gordon for most wins with five; also leads modern-era drivers with 20 top-fives and 32 top-10s for an average finish of ninth at Darlington; earned his first Winston Cup pole at the track in April 1981; in last year's Southern 500, he started ninth and battled a tight handling car en route to a fifth-place finish; in March he finished 10th; will use the Dodge he started and finished second at Dover this year; wins at Pocono and Indianapolis were his best finishes since November 11 victory at Homestead-Miami last year; has 43 career Winston Cup wins in 27 seasons.

Jeff Gordon
Ended the longest winless drought of his career at 31 races Saturday night at Bristol by winning the Sharpie 500 ahead of Rusty Wallace and Dale Earnhardt Jr. for his 59th victory and first since last September at Kansas Speedway; the four-time Winston Cup champion led 235 of 500 laps; moved from fifth to third in the standings, 111 points behind leader Sterling Marlin; along with Bill Elliott, leads all active drivers with five victories at Darlington; won the Southern 500 four straight years from 1995-98; in last year's race, was the man to beat for much of the day until hitting the wall and finishing second behind Ward Burton; finished ninth in the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 on March 17; in 19 races at Darlington, Gordon also has three poles, 10 top-fives, 13 top-10s and has led 1,174 out of a possible 6,026 laps; over the past 14 races at the "Track Too Tough To Tame," he has only two finishes worse than ninth and only one worse than 13th (40th DNF in March 2001 due to engine failure).

	Jarrett

Dale Jarrett
Has twice won the spring race at Darlington but never the fall event; placed third in 1998 and 1999 in this race but finished outside the top 10 last year and this spring; Father Ned won this race by the largest margin ever 36 years ago, beating Buck Baker by 14 laps; since Memorial Day weekend, has two wins, one pole, six top-fives and seven top-10s in a 12-race stretch; those results propelled him into the top 10 of the points standings for the first time this season.

Jimmie Johnson
A victim of an error by Robby Gordon at Bristol for a 34th-place finish, the rookie comes to Darlington as one of the hottest drivers on the circuit; ranks fifth in the points standings, 145 out of first place, and is first in the Rookie of the Year competition by three points over Ryan Newman; won races in California and Dover, poles at Daytona, Talladega and Charlotte, and has 14 top-10 finishes, with five of those in the top five; earnings exceed $2 million; in his first race at Darlington on March 17, he placed sixth after starting fifth.

Bobby Labonte
Comes to Darlington this weekend on a positive note after recording his first top-10 finish in 15 races; finished ninth at Bristol, where he ran among the leaders for much of the night; the result ended his longest drought without a top-10 finish since 1994; in 2000, started 37th (like Ward Burton in 2001) and went on to capture his first career win at NASCAR's oldest track.

	Marlin

Sterling Marlin
In 37 starts at Darlington dating to 1980, the veteran has posted 14 top-10 and nine top-five finishes, with two victories in 1995 and on March 17 this year in the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400; swept back-to-back poles in both Darlington races in 1992; will use the same car he won here with in the spring and at Las Vegas; "At Darlington, you really have to race the track and you have to stay focused all day long," he said. "I enjoy racing there. It's a fun track to me." Led the NASCAR Winston Cup points standings since Rockingham and is the only driver to rank in the top 10 since the Daytona 500 in February 2001.

Mark Martin
Posted one victory at Darlington in 33 starts, with 13 top-five results; tops the Winston Cup series with 15 top-10 finishes, one more than rookie Jimmie Johnson; winner of the longest race, the Coca-Cola 600 in May; has not been lower than fourth in the standings in the last 11 races and is 95 points behind Sterling Marlin in second place.

	Stewart

Tony Stewart
In six appearances at Darlington, the former IRL champion has four top-10 finishes, with a fourth in this race last year; in the spring, he led for the first time for seven laps before a spinning Buckshot Jones collected him off turn 2 on lap 226; he then was T-boned by Jimmy Spencer, a hit that sent Stewart to the hospital for overnight observation; known for his surges late in the season, when he has won seven of 15 career wins (between August-November); has weathered a rollercoaster season that has seen him go from 43rd after the Daytona 500 to fifth three weeks later at Atlanta, then between seventh and fifth before some solid results recently has put him back into contention.

Rusty Wallace
Has never won at Darlington in his career but did well in March, finishing seventh after starting 18th; Jeff Gordon bumped him three laps from the finish at Bristol while leading and came home second; "I just got hit in the rear end going into (turn) 3 and knocked sideways out of groove," he said. "It's the same thing he did to me three or four years ago. That's just racing, I guess. I would have liked to have won. It's been a long time since I won, but it's been a long time since Jeff's won, too, and I knew he wanted it real bad, too." Also was runner-up in recent races at the Pepsi 400 in Daytona and the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis; still involved in the race for the Winston Cup title, just 162 points out of first place.