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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- It had been so long since
Bill Elliott had won a race, especially at Daytona International
Speedway, that shortly after winning the first Gatorade Twin 125
qualifying race for the Daytona 500, his crew chief asked, "Do
you still remember where Victory Lane is?"
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| Bill Elliott earned his fourth 125-mile qualifying race for the Daytona 500. |
Elliott dominated Thursday's NASCAR Winston Cup qualifying race by
taking the lead in the second turn on the first lap and staying
there for the remainder of the 50-lap race. The event was
extremely mundane as, other than Elliott's pass for the lead,
there were only two other passes in the top five.
It was the fourth time Elliott has won a 125-mile qualifying
race for the Daytona 500. His other wins came in 1985, 1986 and
1992.
It also signaled the end of Dale Earnhardt's 10-year winning
streak in the 125-mile qualifying races. Earnhardt wasn't happy either about how the streak ended.
"That's the worst racing I've seen at Daytona in a long time," said seven-time Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt, the 1998
Daytona 500 winner. "They've killed the racing at Daytona. They've taken the race out of the hands of the drivers and crews. It was a joke. Mr. Bill France, Sr. would roll over in his grave."
Elliott finished .171 seconds ahead of Dale Jarrett, who will
start on the Daytona 500 pole. Rusty Wallace was third,
followed by Tony Stewart, Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon, Bobby
Labonte, Scott Pruett and Robby Gordon.
"Well, 2000 started out well," Elliott said. "This is a tribute
to what the crew did all winter. My car was perfect, it ran
well on the bottom. If I could just keep holding them off, I
knew I could hold on to win.
"I had a pretty good start, but a couple of guys started racing
and when I got them cleared, we all just lined up. This
restrictor plate racing is really hard, but this win is just
great. Being out front is the easiest place to be. It's just
great. It's been so long since I've been up front in Daytona,
but I'm ready to go."
Jarrett's second-place finish does not affect his starting
position in Sunday's Daytona 500 because he won the pole last
Saturday.
Jarrett, who remains the favorite to win on Sunday, had
dominated at Daytona International Speedway, winning time trials
for the pole position in the main event and easily taking the Bud
Shootout, a 25-lap race for last year's top qualifiers.
"The main objective today, especially for us, but for most of
the guys, was to get 50 laps under our belts and see what was going
to happen as the tire pressures got up and the fuel got out of the
car," Jarrett said.
"The best way to do that is to stay in line and not get to
dicing around."
The top 15 finishers in this race will line up on the inside of
the top 15 rows in Sunday's Daytona 500.
Elliott drove to victory at an average speed of 188.758 miles
per hour in a caution-free race and picked up the first prize of
$46,921. The race, witnessed by a sun-splashed crowd of
140,000, lasted 39 minutes, 44 seconds.
Elliott, a two-time Daytona 500 winner who had not won any kind
of race since the Southern 500 in 1994, was never challenged in the
first of two 125-mile qualifiers. From the outside of the front
row, he passed Dale Jarrett at the very start and led a three-Ford
breakaway, easily finishing ahead of Jarrett and Wallace
"It wasn't that easy, we were running together and Mark Martin
was on my bumper, but our cars started pushing a little bit,"
Wallace said. "It looked like Bill Elliott had a great car.
Bill is way overdue and I'm really proud of him."
This race does not count as an official NASCAR Winston Cup
victory. Elliott's last win in a Winston Cup race was the 1994
Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.
Chat Little took the 15th and last transfer spot into Sunday's
Daytona 500.
The qualifiers did nothing to quiet the General Motors teams,who have insisted their redesigned Chevrolet Monte Carlos and the
virtually unchanged Pontiac Grand Prixs are at an aerodynamic
disadvantage to the partially redesigned Tauruses.
"It looked like a Ford show from where I was sitting," said
Jeff Gordon, the defending Daytona winner, who finished sixth in
the opener in a Monte Carlo.
Two-time Daytona winner Sterling Marlin finished 17th in the
first race and will start 38th on Sunday in his Chevy. Felix
Sabates, Marlin's team owner, said he doesn't have much hope of
things getting better for the GM cars.
"If you go to a gunfight and guys have bazookas and you've got
a wooden knife, that's not too good," Sabates said.
Wallace shrugged off the GM talk.
"It's all in the preparation and the way they handled the new
shock rule and so forth," he said.
Told that the Chevrolet teams would like to get some aerodynamic
help by having NASCAR allow them a rear sway bar, he said, "Well,
I'm sure people in hell would like a glass of ice water, too."
Mike Helton, who heads the competition side of NASCAR, said
there will be no changes to the aerodynamic or shock rules for the
500.
Jarrett and Rudd will start from the front row on Sunday, thanks
to their qualifying laps last Saturday in the opening round of time
trials.
Positions 3-30 went to the top 14 finishers -- excluding Jarrett
and Rudd -- in the two qualifying races, with 31-36 filled by the
fastest remaining drivers from the two rounds of time trials.
Six more positions went to drivers based on last year's
team-owner points, with Darrell Waltrip getting the final spot in
the 43-car field as a former series champion.
The lineup includes seven rookies, topped by two-time Busch
Series champion Dale Earnhardt Jr., whose Chevrolet finished fourth
in the second race, just behind the Pontiac of Ward Burton.
The younger Earnhardt, who made five Winston Cup starts in 1999,
will begin his first Daytona 500 in eighth, just behind Stewart,
last year's top rookie.
Stewart and Robby Gordon raced together in the first qualifier
and there was no carryover from their shoving match Wednesday. The
drivers, angry about a fender-bender on the track, avoided any
punishment, but NASCAR did fine a Stewart crew member $2,000 for
being too aggressive in breaking up the fight.
Among the 13 drivers who failed to make the 500 field were Dave
Marcis, whose record string of 32 straight Daytona starts ended
when he finished 17th in the second race.
Also heading home was 1986 Daytona 500 winner Geoff Bodine, who
was 19th in the opener.
Bill Elliott believes things went better than expected.
Bill Elliott did what he needed to do in Thursday's Twin 125.