Gordon, Waltrip win in very different ways

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- In a pair of races that could hardly have been more different, Michael Waltrip and Jeff Gordon showed that up front is the place to be in Sunday's Daytona 500.

Defending Daytona winner Waltrip and reigning Winston Cup champion Gordon each won a Gatorade 125-mile qualifying race Thursday.

After a sedate, caution-free opener in which Gordon took the lead from rookie teammate Jimmie Johnson on the first turn of the first lap and led the rest of the way, the second race was a wild, two-by-two affair.

Gordon and Waltrip will start from the second row of the 43-car field on Sunday's, behind only pole-winner Johnson and Kevin Harvick, who earned their front-row positions in first-round qualifying Saturday.

"Our race was pretty conservative," Gordon said. "Most of the guys played it pretty conservative. In the second race, with the cautions coming out, that allowed a lot of guys to make some moves and take some chances."

Gordon, a two-time Daytona 500 winner and a four-time champion in NASCAR's top series, led a five-car breakaway in the first race and was able to outdrive Dale Earnhardt Jr. in a battle of Chevrolets.

Waltrip, whose first career victory came here a year ago, barely held off Tony Stewart in the second race at the head of a tightly bunched 17-car pack, winning by about a car-length.

"When you have that strong a car and get out front that early, the leader has a huge advantage," Gordon said. "Even when those cars get a big run on you, it's extremely hard to make the pass happen."

Waltrip did a great job of darting up and down the banked track on the last few laps to keep Stewart and the rest of the challengers behind him.

"That's the best I've ever driven those last 10 laps," Waltrip said. "A lot of people made pushes on me and couldn't quite get by.

"I'd rather be out front at the end, but it's like playing Russian roulette. You don't want to get too far ahead, but if you slow down, they can just whip around you. It's a crazy game out there trying to keep the lead in one of these races."

Stewart, considered a favorite Sunday, won a 70-lap, non-points race Sunday and found some extra speed in practice Wednesday.

"We've got something for 'em on Sunday now," Stewart said. "But there's going to be 12, 14, 16 cars that really have a chance of winning that race."

Waltrip, who led 46 of 50 laps, echoed Stewart.

"Sunday is going to be a hard race to win," Waltrip said. "You put more better cars in there and you'll see some crazy stuff."

Behind Waltrip's Chevrolet and Stewart's Pontiac were the Chevrolets of Jerry Nadeau and Harvick, the Pontiac of Stewart's teammate Bobby Labonte, the Chevy of Robby Gordon and the Monte Carlo of 60-year-old Dave Marcis, who plans to retire following his 33rd Daytona 500.

Gordon, who earned his first 125 victory since his first start in 1993, also secured his position as one of the favorites.

"I had no idea we were going to have this good a race car," Gordon said.

Waltrip's teammate, Earnhardt, who showed his Daytona muscle last year by finishing second in the 500 and running away with the Pepsi 400 in July, drove to second on the 10th of 50 laps but couldn't get a real run at Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet.

"He kept me on my toes," Gordon said of Earnhardt. "He's one heck of a driver. It may have looked easy, but it wasn't. I had to fight for every lap, every corner.

"A couple of times, Junior really got a good run on me and had he pushed the issue and it was the Daytona 500, it might have been a different story."

Gordon wound up about two car-lengths ahead of Earnhardt's Chevrolet, followed closely across the finish line by the Chevy of Ken Schrader, the Ford of Ricky Rudd, the Monte Carlo of Terry Labonte and the Dodge of two-time Daytona winner Sterling Marlin.

Earnhardt, whose father was killed here a year ago on the final lap of the 500, was disappointed that he couldn't give Gordon a harder time at the end.

"I tried to stack up with the No. 36 (Schrader) behind me to see if we could get a run, but we just couldn't complete it," Junior said. "Whoever is out front is going to be there."

That has been a recurring theme here, with most of the drivers saying that the car out front has the advantage, thanks to NASCAR's new aerodynamic rules for Daytona and Talladega, its longest and fastest ovals.

Last year, with a metal strip across the top of the cars and bigger openings in the carburetor restrictor plates, the cars were running two- and three-wide and passing all over the track on just about every lap.

With the strip removed and the plates closed down a bit, the cars are about 5 mph slower and passing has become a chore.

"It's like a covey of quail on that last lap," Schrader said. "If it comes down to a last-lap deal on Sunday and things were the same, if I go with Dale, someone is going to go with me, someone is going to go with him and someone is going to think, 'Hey, there's room down here on the inside.' You don't know what is going to happen."

After a clean first race, there were two wrecks in the second 125-miler. Jimmy Spencer, who failed to make Sunday's race, was involved in both.

On lap 10, Mike Skinner's ignition quit and his car slowed in Turn 2 as he reached to turn on a backup ignition box. Buckshot Jones ran into the back of his car, squeezed between Skinner and Kenny Wallace, and that set off a melee that also included Spencer, Rusty Wallace, Dave Blaney, Bobby Gerhart and Shawna Robinson.

Fourteen drivers from each race automatically made it into Sunday's lineup. Robinson wound up 24th but still got in, thanks to a qualifying speed from Saturday's time trials.

She joins Janet Guthrie as the only women to race in the Daytona 500. Guthrie last raced here in 1980. Guthrie also race at Daytona in 1977.

Positions 31-36 were filled by the fastest remaining drivers from two rounds of time trials, while positions 37-43 were determined by car-owner points from last season.

Spencer also brought out a yellow flag on lap 29 when he slid up and hit the wall in Turn 2.