Daytona Beach, Fla. — It looks as though NASCAR has stumbled upon a formula where the auto racing at Daytona International Speedway mimics that of any other oval that puts a premium on handling. This package allows for solid racing, without the white knuckle driving.
It's a package that allowed a pair of Ford drivers to ride into the top-10, making them the only non-Chevy badged cars in that class of the field.
Kurt Busch, the best finishing Ford driver, rode the wave created by Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon as they teamed up to beat out the dominant Dale Earnhardt Inc. entries. Busch worked well with the Hendrick cars, shadowing their every move at the event's close.
"I was on my own with the four Hendrick cars," Busch said post-race. "It's just a great opportunity to run with those guys. They've got their [restrictor-] plate program figured out and they challenged DEI this week, and we're getting the gap closed. I believe we're making the right steps. We had a third-place car at the Daytona 500 when we raced here - just one lap down [finishing 11th] - and I need to learn some more about it and I need to still be humble about what we need to do because I still think we need to learn.”
Referring to the cola wars, which gained national attention in the mainstream media this weekend, Busch noted, "Even though it was the Pepsi car [Gordon drove] and we were running the Coca-Cola paint scheme, we were doing the best we could against those Hendrick cars. Congratulations to [race winner] Gordon, but I think we had more Coke cars out there than his one Pepsi car."
Mark Martin, who had only completed eight laps in February’s Daytona 500 with a solid car, was in the only other Ford Taurus that made it into the top-10. "This is the kind of car I had in February too, that's why I was so upset - not only about the points, but I thought I might have had a chance to be a contender in the 500.
"We certainly had a chance today," added Martin. "I know we finished sixth and that's nothing to brag about, but we just missed it by one lick."
Martin might have been able to squeeze out a better finish, but without a lot of drafting help he was slugging away the best he could.
"We didn't have any partners out there," noted Martin of the Chevy rich front pack. "Pat Tryson and the Viagra team had that car really hooked up and we were strolling, but when it came time to go race for the win, the 20 and the 18 [both Gibbs’ cars] were gonna stick together. The 48 and 24 stuck together and the 8 wasn't gonna mess with me, so I was just there all by myself.
"The 97 was ahead of me and I needed somebody to be behind me and there wasn't anybody."
There was a potential third Roush Racing car running in the top-10, Greg Biffle's, which was latched onto Martin's rear bumper at go time, but a cut tire with three laps to go derailed the Roush train.
This 400 was remarkable in that it spared the body men of the industry "the big one". As a matter of fact the only multi-car incident of the night involved just four cars — unfortunately one of those was Matt Kenseth's.
That lap 18 incident began when Ward Burton lost the right rear tire on his Chevy as he worked Turn 2. Kenseth, who was riding in the tire tracks of Burton when he started to go around, nearly cleared the incident, but got the nose of his Taurus knocked off as Burton sawed at the wheel to save his car.
The start of the race was delayed by more than two-hours due to rain and was started with the green-yellow combination. The field ran the first 10 laps under caution to finish up drying the track.
