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Junior Off To Fast Start

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By TONY FABRIZIO | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 15, 2008

DAYTONA BEACH - Dale Earnhardt Jr. couldn't win any more with his family's race team. Now that he's with Hendrick Motorsports, he can't lose.

Earnhardt took one 150-mile qualifying race and Denny Hamlin gave Toyota its first major-league NASCAR victory in the other Thursday, as Dale Jarrett and two underdogs raced their way into Sunday's 50th Daytona 500 and two-time winners Bill Elliott and Sterling Marlin were left out.

"We've got to remember that we're at Daytona," Earnhardt said, downplaying the fact he's 2-for-2 with Hendrick after also winning Saturday's Bud Shootout. "We've had a lot of wins here. We can't really sing a lot of praise yet."

Earnhardt won the 2001 Pepsi 400 and the 2004 Daytona 500 with Dale Earnhardt Inc., but he went winless in his final 62 points races there. Now that he's joined the team that has won the last two championships and two of the last three Daytona 500s, he looks unstoppable.

At minimum, he has made himself one of the favorites to win the 500 that comes 10 years after his father won on his 20th try.

"I feel like we got a shot, you know what I mean?" he said. "We've got to be in the group of favorites if there is a group."

Starting from the back of the field with six other drivers because of an engine change, Earnhardt needed only 18 laps to drive his No. 88 Chevrolet to the front. He made a final pass for the lead with nine laps left when Reed Sorenson helped him draft past Ryan Newman. Sorenson finished second and Newman third in a pair of Dodges.

Hamlin also had to start from the back because of an engine change, but his victory didn't come as easily.

Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Tony Stewart looked poised to win until a late-race wreck set up a green-white-checkered finish.

During a six-minute red flag, Stewart warned Hamlin that Jeff Gordon, who was sitting in third, would lay back on the restart and try to get a run on both of them. Gordon did just that, but Hamlin darted in front him and Gordon pushed him to the lead. Stewart still managed to finish second, and Gordon finished third.

"I had a huge run on Tony," Hamlin said. "We knew it would be tough for us to finish 1-2 at the end just riding like we were."

Although it was Toyota's first victory in NASCAR's top level, Hamlin's win was no upset. Gibbs is a powerhouse team, and NASCAR rules assure that there isn't much difference among the cars and engines.

Stewart, who also finished second in the Shootout, turned to sarcasm when asked if the three races that have been run have set up a showdown between the Hendrick Chevrolets and Gibbs Toyotas.

"For you guys media, I'm going to say 'yeah,' just because it makes a great storyline," he said. "It's going to be an epic battle. It could be the battle of a lifetime, of the century. May not be another battle of this proportion for the rest of my life, career or this century."

Following up with a serious answer, Stewart said, "It probably will be, but you can't just limit it to those to teams. There are a lot of good cars."

Only Jimmie Johnson and Michael Waltrip, who locked up the front row Sunday, knew where they were going to start Sunday. The qualifying races determined where drivers with guaranteed starting berths would line up and who would get the five remaining berths.

Jarrett, Brian Vickers, Kenny Wallace and John Andretti grabbed the four "transfer" spots, and Kurt Busch used his former championship provisional to take the 43rd spot. Lakeland's Joe Nemechek and Zephyrhills' David Reutimann got in because of the speeds they ran Sunday.

Journeymen drivers Wallace, a Furniture Row Racing teammate of Nemechek, and Andretti, driving for low-budget Front Row Motorsports, were major surprises.

"I wish I could have put money on me in Vegas on me making the race," Andretti said. "We were definitely not somebody that anybody expected."

When Elliott failed to qualify, so did the Wood Brothers Racing team, which has raced in every Daytona 500 since 1962. Elliott won the 500 in 1985 and 1987 and holds Daytona's all-time qualifying record. The Wood Brothers own four Daytona 500 victories.

Marlin, the last driver to win the 500 back-to-back (1994-'95), will miss the race for the first time since 1982. Ken Schrader, who failed to qualify with BAM Racing, will not race in the 500 for the first time since 1984.

Among the others not making the 500 were former Formula One world champion and Indy 500 winner Jacques Villeneuve, former CART and IRL driver Patrick Carpentier and Boris Said - who lost out when Andretti passed Reutimann on the last lap of the second qualifier.

Daytona 500 Lineup (Top 20)

Keyword: NASCAR for complete multimedia coverage: Read our Daytona blog for the latest news and analysis. See what's happening behind the scenes in our photo gallery. Top drivers discuss what it will take to win Sunday.

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