DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Mike Skinner was looking at Ryan Newman in his rear-view mirror on Lap 58 of the first of two 150-mile qualifying race for Sunday’s Daytona 500 when suddenly he saw Dale Earnhardt Jr. moving up beside Newman and Michael Waltrip right on Earnhardt’s bumper.
It was a fearful sight on this 2.5-mile speedway on which Earnhardt and Waltrip have won three of the past four Daytona 500s.
“It was one lap too soon for me,” said Skinner, who finished third in the 60-lap race. “If Dale hadn’t gotten beside Newman until the next lap, I might have had a chance of holding them off. But that kid has learned so much, there is no doubt that he’s a chip off the old block. He’s certainly not the mailman’s kid.”
Earnhardt, the 2004 Daytona 500 winner and son of the late seven-time Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt, got the lead but couldn’t hold off Waltrip, his Dale Earnhardt Inc. teammate, Thursday.
On the final lap, Waltrip was on Earnhardt’s rear bumper for the lead coming out of Turn 2 and down the backstretch. Coming out of Turn 4, they were side-by-side and they stayed that way until Waltrip nudged his Chevrolet’s nose in front just as they crossed the line for a .030-seconds victory.
The wins put Waltrip and Stewart, who held off Jeff Burton and his Chevy, on the second row for the start in Sunday’s 500.
“We didn’t get a chance to race Dale and Michael today,” said Stewart, after winning the first qualifying race of his career. “We’ll have to see what happens. The sad thing is you have to have a teammate to have any hope. A man alone doesn’t have a chance.”
Stewart credited his own teammate, Bobby Labonte, who finished 12th, with giving him the bump he needed to make the pass for the lead.
“It cost Bobby, because it took some power away from him and I couldn’t wait until he got it back,” Stewart said. “It would have been nice to have finished one-two, but I had to go.”
Under NASCAR’s new qualifying system, which guarantees starting spots to the top 35 in points from last season, the final eight spots in the field were determined by Thursday’s race results and last Sunday’s qualifying speeds.
The fastest two finishing drivers in each race who were not in the top 35 were added to the field and the four drivers with the best qualifying speeds not already in the race were then added.
Skinner, Kenny Wallace, Kevin Lepage and Martin Truex Jr. raced their way into the 500 field Thursday, while Jason Leffler, Boris Said, John Andretti and Mike Wallace made the field with their qualifying speeds.
Ryan Newman’s No. 12 Dodge appeared to be the strongest individual car throughout the afternoon. Newman made passes on his own in the first race to move up for a fourth-place finish. He said he wasn’t surprised by the “sudden” revitalization of the Earnhardt/Waltrip team that has dominated restrictor-plate racing.
“I knew they were going to be strong,” he said. “I think if we had had some dedicated help like they had we would have been just fine.
“At the end, I had the best seat in the house. I watched a heck of a finish.”
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