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CONCORD — Finally running out of time and patience, NASCAR ended the 50th running of the Coca-Cola 600 Monday evening after two days and 340.5 miles.

That came as a relief to David Reutimann, who outlasted the elements and the field to win his first race, and to more than 125,000 fans who braved rain and mud and traffic and about two weeks of waiting to see a winner.

Reutimann stood in the rain for hours after the fourth red flag of the day anticipating an announcement that, quite frankly, would've come a lot sooner had an established driver been leading. Instead, the sport stood around in the rain trying to avoid handing Reutimann the victory. When it could finally put it off no longer, NASCAR grudgingly awarded the Toyota driver the victory.

"When you envision winning your first NASCAR race, you envision something different," he said.

No one envisioned this.

Once again, the fans filed out of the stands and into the streets. Once again, the campers climbed down from the scaffolding and into the tents, the campfires doused for good. Finally, after all the drawn out days and nights of the all-star events and truck races and minor-league races, the longest stock-car race of them all came to a fitting end 259.5 miles from its intended end.

"We got this one today," Reutimann said. "Hopefully, the next one we can earn it."

Everyone who was at the end of the race earned this one. After four red flags and countless green and yellows, the 50th Coca-Cola 600 ended without the checkered flag even falling. Then the sun came out, creating a surreal scene in victory lane with dark clouds in the distant north and bright skies over the first turn of Lowe's Motor Speedway at the end of the annual Charlotte tour stop.

The scene Monday morning was like something out of NASCAR's past when the fans and the drivers and the officials and everyone else woke up together inside the track and went through the rituals together.

There was a time when race days began at dawn with the campfires rekindled from the night before and fans waking from where they passed out. On the morning of the first stock-car race ever run on Memorial Day, the infield looked like the morning after Woodstock. In the tent camping area inside the third and fourth turns, people stood ankle-deep in beer cans as radios blared country music and Sunday night survivors wandered around aimlessly looking for a race.

There's never been a sporting event quite like the one we witnessed Monday, and hopefully we never will again. From the time the four F-15s flew over the speedway Sunday afternoon at the end of the Star Spangled Banner until NASCAR officials called an end to it all Monday evening, the stock-car circus spun tires in the mud and tried to get out of its own way. It was insane, but it was also a lot of fun to watch.

The race wasn't the first in 600 history to be postponed. The very first one in 1960 was pushed back a month because the track wasn't completed. In 1963, after heavy rain washed out the fourth World 600, it was run in its entirety a week later. This was different, though. At about 8:30 p.m. Sunday, a loud speaker announcement that the start would be postponed until noon Monday was like dropping the green flag on 125,000 people.

Almost immediately, with the N.C. Highway Patrol scrambling to get into place and post-race workers trying to get out in front of the crowds, the area around Lowe's Motor Speedway became a sea of people, many of them with four hours of beer left over and no fear of the thousands of cars rolling down Highway 29. Within minutes, a traffic jam developed outside the speedway and a gridlock of unimaginable scope set in.

Racing fans being racing fans, they settled in for a long night on the highways and speedway infield. The traffic stretched in every direction, and the infield parties began preparations for a long ordeal. They had no idea.

The fans who sat in the rain for two days finally packed up one last time and went home to tell stories that will last a lifetime. The drivers who sat through it in their cars and in their RVs and in their own homes in the Charlotte area, had varying opinions.

"It was something different," David Ragan said after finishing 24th. "But I just like good ol' normal races."

This was not one of those. This was an abnormal race, and one no one who was here for the whole thing will ever forget the longest running of the shortest 600 in history.

Contact Ed Hardin at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com