stops, and Irwin retained the lead after the resumption of racing on lap 110, leading 15 laps in total until being passed by Gordon on lap 123 on account of having a flat tire, just before the caution came out once again for a rain shower. The brief four-lap caution saw Gordon retaining the lead; he continued to pace the field as Irwin, on lap 141, hit the Thunderbird of Chad Little, setting off a nine-car accident that brought out a caution. Gordon continued to lead on the restart, and on lap 155, five laps from the finish of the event, rain began to fall once again; the caution flag was thrown, then the red flag, stopping the race to allow the track to be dried and the event to finish under green. After a 37-minute red flag period, the race resumed; Gordon was able to hold off his challengers over the final three laps to take his eleventh win of the season. In the midst of the final sprint, Chad Little ended up getting turned from behind by Jimmy Spencer while in a three wide battle exiting turn 4 and crashed hard into the inside wall, failing to make it to the stripe and finishing 20th. Gordon set an average speed of while leading 49 of the race's 160 laps. Gordon received $184,325 in purse money. Bobby Labonte finished second; Mike Skinner was third, while Jeremy Mayfield and Rusty Wallace finished in the top five. The fastest lap of the race was set by Dale Earnhardt, at . Gordon, who had entered the race with the points lead, extended it to 358 points over Mark Martin; nobody would challenge Gordon over the remainder of the season, and he would go on to win his third Winston Cup Series championship; he was the youngest driver to accomplish the feat. The race took two hours, forty-six minutes, and two seconds to complete, and the margin of victory was 0.176 seconds. Statistical notes The 1998 Pepsi 400 was the only Winston Cup Series start by Dan Pardus, and the last by Billy Standridge. It was also the last race for which Rick Wilson attempted to qualify. The Pepsi 400 would return to its traditional July date in 1999, and has been held at night every year since the 1998 event, except in 2014, 2019 and 2022 when it was postponed to Sunday