Earnhardt Jr, Hamlin win Gatorade Duels

Jenna Fryer-Ap Auto Racing Writer
Published: February 14, 2008

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - They showed up as favorites, endured
their share of failures and found a way to stay at the front of the
Daytona 500.
There’s a reason Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing are
the ones to beat in NASCAR. Now, they’ll try to beat each other in
a super showdown in the biggest race of the year.
“It’s going to be the epic battle, and it should be the battle
of a lifetime and the century,” Gibbs driver Tony Stewart quipped.
“There may not be another battle of this proportion for the rest
of my life, my career, for the century.”
Stewart was of course overplaying the magnitude of Sunday’s
season-opener. But when Hendrick driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. and
Gibbs driver Denny Hamlin each won a qualifying race Thursday, it
set the stage for a fabulous battle.
Six of the top nine starting spots will be filled by drivers
from both teams, while Gibbs driver Kyle Busch rolls off from the
24th position. Hendrick driver Jimmie Johnson, the two-time
defending Cup series champion, will start from the pole.
It makes either team the obvious favorite to win the 50th
running of The Great American Race. But Stewart, who finished
second to teammate Hamlin in Thursday’s second qualifier, said it
wasn’t that simple.
“I think you can’t just limit to those two teams,” Stewart
said. “But like I said, if it helps us make a better headline for
tomorrow, yeah, it’s going to be the battle of a lifetime.”
That’s certainly the way it looked after all four Hendrick cars
and two of the three Gibbs cars overcame engine problems that
forced them to swap their motors before Thursday’s races. Just the
day before, Gibbs had four motors traveling up I-95 as four motors
headed down to Daytona, and the two truck drivers honked as they
passed each other on the busy road.
After years of playing second fiddle to Hendrick as the top team
for General Motors - Hendrick drivers won 18 of 36 races last
season - Gibbs will try to dethrone the powerful team with its new
Toyota support. Hamlin drove a Camry to its first win in NASCAR’s
top series by working with Stewart, then ultimately passed his
teammate for the qualifying race victory.
“Very proud,” Hamlin said. “I definitely was a ... guy that
liked the switch over to Toyota. To give those guys their very
first win, and so early into the season, is definitely a proud
moment.”
Three-time Daytona 500 winner Dale Jarrett, who is retiring next
month, raced his way into his final 500 start. He joined John
Andretti, Kenny Wallace and Brian Vickers as drivers who made their
way into the race through Thursday’s qualifiers.
But two-time Daytona 500 winners Sterling Marlin and Bill
Elliott joined former open-wheel standouts Jacques Villeneuve and
Patrick Carpentier as drivers who failed to make NASCAR’s showcase
event.
They’ll have to watch from home as the Hendrick and Gibbs teams
battle it out, with Earnhardt going off as the favorite. He’s
2-for-2 in his Hendrick debut after stealing a win from Stewart in
last week’s exhibition Budweiser Shootout, then holding on to win
the first of Thursday’s qualifiers.
Stewart seemed poised to win the second qualifier, but a late
race caution set up a two-lap shootout to the finish. During a
six-minute red flag he talked strategy with Hamlin, debating how to
hold off Gordon, who lurked in third place.
Stewart, who has lost more than his fair share of races because
the Hendrick fleet ganged up on him, predicted Gordon would lay off
on the re-start and try to chase the Gibbs drivers down.
“That’s his normal deal, he won’t take off when we do,”
Stewart said. “Watch your rearview mirror and react accordingly.
Do what you gotta do after that, man.”
That’s exactly what Hamlin did, sticking with Gordon before
passing his teammate for the win. It was a big picture victory, and
Stewart didn’t mind losing out to his teammate.
“Great job, bud,” Stewart radioed. “You did right. You did
exactly what you needed to do.”
Now they’ll try to do it again Sunday, where a Hendrick driver -
any of the four - could win. The team has shown zero dropoff from
2007 and appears even stronger with Earnhardt now in the mix.
But NASCAR’s most popular driver - the 2004 Daytona 500 winner -
wasn’t ready to declare himself the favorite.
“I feel like we got a shot, you know what I mean?” Earnhardt
said. “Nobody is boastful enough, I don’t think, personality-wise,
to come in here and claim that. I wouldn’t expect anybody to do
that.
“But I think we got a great shot.”
Earnhardt goes into the 500 searching for his first
points-victory in almost two years. After winning two races so far
this Speedweeks, he seems poised to pull off a rare sweep.
“It’s a Cinderella story,” said Wallace, one of two drivers to
race their way into the 500 in the first qualifier. “It looks like
he’s going to sweep Speedweeks if he doesn’t break.”
The first qualifying race was a showdown between Red Bull Racing
teammates Brian Vickers and AJ Allmendinger, who both had to race
their way into the 500 field. Vickers made it in with a last-lap
pass of Joe Nemechek to finish 11th and secure his spot in the
field.
It was a comeback for Vickers, who was spun by Boris Said three
laps into the race and had to make an unscheduled pit stop for a
flat tire. Vickers, a one-time star at Hendrick Motorsports,
struggled horribly through his first season with Red Bull when the
team struggled to make races.
“Oh, it’s like I won the race,” Vickers said. “I think the
last time I felt this good was when I won a race (at Talladega in
2006). I mean, the 50th running of the Daytona 500 is special, but
just to start the year off right.”
Allmendinger failed to make the 500, finishing 13th in the
qualifier. He, too, struggled to make races last season and was
disappointed in not being able to put both Red Bull cars in the
field.
“I mean, unfortunately, everybody at Red Bull, they deserve to
have two cars in,” Allmendinger said. “It’s good that Brian got
in, at least, (for) the guys back in the shop but my guys deserve
better than that. Just never had the car right.”
Kurt Busch lost power in his Dodge about 10 laps into the race,
and the failure had a huge effect on several drivers. Because the
2004 series champion gave his points earned from last season to new
teammate Sam Hornish Jr. - a move that ensures Hornish a spot in
the first five races of the season, Busch will make the Daytona 500
under the past champion’s provisional.
“We got some burned-up wires under the dash, so that’s not
good,” Busch said. “We’ve got the champion’s provisional to fall
back on, and so we’re not too worried about it.”
But it created a huge worry for Jarrett, who had hoped the
provisional still would be available for him just in case he failed
to race his way into the field in the second qualifying race. It
didn’t matter, though, when Jarrett finished ninth in his
qualifier.
“Certainly, I wanted to be a part of the 50th running of the
Daytona 500,” Jarrett said. “Now we’ve got the hard part over
with. We’ll go to work on this baby and see if we can tune it up a
little bit and see what we can do on Sunday.”