Restricted revelry: winning the Daytona 500 brings prestige but means little the rest of the season, when the cars and rules, for the most part, are drastically different - NASCAR - stock car racing

Tommy Baldwin, crew chief for Ward Burton's Daytona 500-winning Dodge, exults in the realization of a lifelong dream as his driver and teammates celebrate their victory at Daytona International Speedway. "I wish I could say I'm going to Disneyland" Baldwin says. "But I can't."

The nature of the Winston Cup schedule--36 official races, plus two other weekends of competition in a 41-week period--doesn't leave much time to relish victories or agonize over failures, never mind make celebratory trips to theme parks.

That might be just as well for many of the competitors in this year's 500, as wild and wacky of a Daytona race as any in the storied history of the event.

Burton survived a three-lap shootout after a confusing sequence of events and a red-flag delay. He benefited from a tangle between Jeff Gordon and Sterling Marlin that sent Gordon's Chevrolet spinning and resulted in a penalty against Marlin, who got out of his car during the red flag and appeared to make an adjustment to the car's damaged right front fender, a violation of NASCAR rules.

The Daytona 500 is stock car racing's biggest race of the year, generating the greatest interest, the highest television ratings and, often, the most intense controversy of all the races in the long season. It might seem backward to some sports fans for the premier event to be held at the beginning of the season rather than at the conclusion, but race fans are used to it, and many in the sport think it's appropriate.

"I think it definitely makes more sense for us because everybody is fresh," Dale Jarrett says. "We've had the most time to prepare for our biggest race and our biggest event, and that's the way it should be. You should have the most time to get ready for that.

"We have the very best drivers here. No one is injured, and everybody has had the entire offseason to get ready for this. Everybody has (their) best stuff here, and the drivers are in their best shape. When you win this race, you've beaten the best at their very best."

It's a great way to start the season, but it seldom guarantees anything in the Winston Cup points chase. Jarrett is a three-time Daytona 500 winner (1993, 1996, 2000), but he won his only Winston Cup championship in 1999 after starting the season with a 37th-place finish at Daytona. Jeff Gordon won the 500 that year but had to settle for sixth place in the final standings because seven DNFs stopped him from winning a third straight Winston Cup title.

And the late Dale Earnhardt won his seven Winston Cup titles despite a history of frustration in the Daytona 500 before he finally won the event in 1998.

Gordon went on and won the Winston Cup title in 1997 after starting the season with a Daytona victory. Lee Petty (1959), Richard Petty (1964, 1974 and 1979) and Cale Yarborough are the only o/hers to win the 500 in a championship season.

Jarrett, who spun out in the scramble to the finish while battling for a top-five spot, ended up 14th. He can take comfort in his 1999 comeback after Daytona disappointment. So can Tony Stewart, who was among the Daytona 500 favorites and scored two victories during Speedweeks activities but ended up last in the 43-car field because his Pontiac's engine failed when he had completed but two of the race's 200 laps.

The circuit moves this weekend to Rockingham, N.C., and 1.017-mile North Carolina Speedway. The track is much smaller and slower than the 2.5-mile Daytona tri-oval, and the cars will be dramatically different compared with the equipment that ran at Daytona--no restrictor plates on the engines, no NASCAR-mandated rear springs, no hypersensitive aerodynamics.

With the exception of some Olympic events and perhaps golf, no sport presents competitors with the kinds of challenges NASCAR race teams face. Football and baseball teams may play indoors or out, on artificial turf or grass, in cold climates or tropical. But the games they play, and the rules by which they play them, are always the same.

Not so in NASCAR. Big tracks such as Daytona and its 2.66-mile sister, Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, are the only courses on the circuit where the horsepower-limiting restrictor plates are required. The construction and setup of the car are different compared with a smaller track or one with a different configuration. Throw in two dramatically different half-mile ovals--flat Martinsville and high-banked, concrete-paved Bristol--and two road courses, with left- and righthand turns, and there are even more variations in the racing equipment.

Making a stock car perform on any track requires the right combination of aerodynamics, chassis and horsepower. But the combination is different for each of the 23 tracks where Winston Cup events are held, and subtly different among drivers because of their varying styles of racing.

"You have to have a fine balance between all those things," says Danny Lawrence of Richard Childress Racing, "and you have to have a driver who gives you input to be able to react to changes in track conditions, temperatures and so forth."

Teams also must make adjustments to incremental changes in rules, a topic of controversy this year (and, usually, every year) at Daytona. But that's nothing new, says NBC analyst Benny Parsons, who won the 1975 Daytona 500. Even the two annual races at the Daytona track present different challenges, Parsons says.

"In the Daytona 500, we always tried to come with a sleek automobile, an aerodynamic car that would go through the air as well as possible," Parsons says. "But in July, when we came back for the (Pepsi) 400, we would give up speed for an intermediate car that would handle better, that had more downforce."

The extra downforce is needed to help the tires get a grip on the track, which becomes greasy and slippery in the July heat. In the summer race, the downforce becomes more important than the extra wind resistance, or drag, that it creates.

Fabricators used to have more control over the shape of the cars' bodies and could be creative in achieving the desired balance between drag and downforce. NASCAR has numerous templates to which the bodies now must conform, so the differences nowadays are subtle.

A car that is to be raced on a short oval or road course will have different springs and shock absorbers, different distribution of its total weight, an engine tuned to produce power in a specific way and other things not visible to the observer. It will also have more and larger openings in the nose of its body to allow a greater volume of air to be ducted to the radiator and brakes.

Brakes are not needed to slow the car for cornering on the superspeedways, so brake ducts are not necessary. Closing off those openings in the front end helps improve the aerodynamics of the speedway car, but some opening is necessary to keep the engine cool. Teams cover the radiator opening with tape for qualifying runs, which last only one or two laps, and must make even more changes in the car's chassis setup to accommodate the aedrodynamic differences that result.

"You can just about tell by looking at the front end of the car, how big the grille openings are in the car," Lawrence says. "But the average person, if they saw (a speedway car and short-track car) sitting side by side, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

Another external difference is that on larger tracks, NASCAR rules require a side window panel on the passenger side. That helps the aerodynamics of the car, but it's required for safety, to help keep the car from becoming airborne if it should spin sideways.

Since the advent of the restrictor plates in 1988, some of NASCAR's intermediate speedways have surpassed the two giant tracks in speeds. While the pole is usually won at Daytona and Talladega with a speed of about 185 mph, the track record at the 1.54-mile Atlanta Motor Speedway is in excess of 197 mph.

But, Parsons points out, the range of speed varies dramatically at the smaller tracks. The cars lose much more speed in the corners, then accelerate down the straightaways.

"At Atlanta, you come off the corner at 7,000 rpm and accelerate to 9,000 rpm," he says. "At Daytona, you come off the corner at 6,800 rpm and accelerate to 6,900 rpm. The car just sustains that same speed all the way around the track."

Competitors speculate that without restrictor plates, Winston Cup cars would be averaging as much as 225 mph at Daytona and Talladega. But the variation between their slowest and fastest speeds during a single lap still would be much smaller than on a smaller, tighter course.

New rules were in effect for this year's Daytona 500 after recent events at Daytona and Talladega turned ugly, with tightly bunched packs of cars getting involved in spectacular crashes. This year's 500 had its share of multicar wrecks, but drivers agreed that the new rules were successful in eliminating the congestion while still providing interesting competition.

"That's the way it's supposed to be," third-place finisher Geoffrey Bodine says. "Drivers are supposed to put a little skill into driving these cars, and today, if you had a good car and a good driver, you could make some moves."

For Burton and the Bill Davis Racing team, it was their biggest victory yet, and the argument could be made that Burton was due some good fortune at Daytona. He led 70 laps in last year's race but was caught in a grinding crash on the backstretch three-fourths of the way through and finished 35th.

This season, Burton is off to a much better start. He led the final five laps and gave Dodge its first Daytona 500 triumph since Richard Petty won in 1974.

The next stop on the Winston Cup trail hardly will be daunting for Burton, who scored his first Cup victory on the Rockingham track in 1995. "We're excited about Rockingham," Burton says. "We finished sixth there last time and felt like we had one of the cars to beat."

Last season was a difficult one for the Davis team after its Daytona crash. New tires provided by supplier Goodyear created handling riddles for many teams, including Burton's. But the team persevered and scored a victory in another one of NASCAR's most prestigious events, the Southern 500 at Darlington, before 2001 was done. "Tommy (Baldwin) and the guys learned a lot, and I learned a lot," Burton says.

Baldwin says the team is in its best shape ever, and the demanding schedule that's under way will not present any immediate difficulties.

"We have the first six races' cars sitting there, ready to go," Baldwin says. "This winter was pretty mellow, a lot more mellow than I've been used to. I knew if we just stuck to the basics, not make any big changes to the car, we'd be OK. The next three or four weeks, that's what we're going to do."

Even if Burton and the Davis team carry nothing more than emotional momentum to Rockingham, that's not insignificant, competitors say.

"If you can win the Daytona 500, it makes a good start for the season," says Marlin, who won it in 1994 and '95. "There's a lot of prestige that goes along with it if you can win it. Everybody has worked hard over the winter getting prepared to win it. Some guys have won it and finished out of the top 25 in points. Some guys have won it and went on to win the championship.

"It pays 180 points (like any victory), but it pays a lot of money to win it and carries a lot of prestige."

RELATED ARTICLE: Dish Daytona 500.

NASCAR's decision to change the competition rules as it went during the last two weeks paid off in a competitive Daytona 500 that produced its share of wrecks and drama. Though there were only 20 lead changes--there were 49 in the 500 last year--there were nine cautions for 38 laps because drivers raced every lap as if it were the last. Lack of patience was the impetus for many of the wrecks. ... The intentions of the "yellow-line rule" used at the restrictor-plate tracks, Daytona and Talladega, are good, but the results often are not. NASCAR president Mike Helton warned drivers in the prerace meeting not to go below the yellow line on the track's apron to pass or to block a competitor. The goal is to prevent cars from stacking up side by side and then running out of racetrack going into the turns. The rule came into play twice in the 500, and both times there were wrecks. Kevin Harvick admitted he tried to block Jeff Gordon, which led to Gordon bumping him and setting off an 18-car pileup on lap 148. Instead of shooting beneath the yellow line to pass Harvick or letting up and risking others hitting him from behind, Gordon obeyed the rule and stayed where he was. "I tried to block, he came up, and all hell broke loose" Harvick said. "You have to block because if you get hung out, you have to go to the back and start over again. I came down, we got together, and I wrecked" Later, on lap 195, Sterling Marlin got his left side tires below the yellow line to try to pass Gordon for the lead, Gordon blocked him, the cars touched, Gordon spun, Marlin took the lead, and then came the red flag. Marlin was not penalized for the move but probably should have been. The rule is difficult to police and places too much judgment in NASCAR's hands.... Was the hit Harvick took hard enough to make him gun-shy in the future? Don't bet on it.... Though Marlin was not penalized because of the yellow line incident, NASCAR did boot him to the back of the lead pack because he got out of his car and tried to pull the fender off the right front tire after the race was red-flagged on lap 195 after Marlin took the lead. Marlin suggests NASCAR must have changed the rules about what drivers can do during red-flag conditions. "I saw (Dale) Earnhardt do it at Richmond one time in '87," Marlin said. "He got out of his car and cleaned the windshield, so I thought it was OK. I guess it wasn't." The rule says drivers must have permission to get out of their cars during a red flag, and they are not allowed to work on them. Marlin led the most laps, 78, but finished eighth. "We were one decision away from winning the Daytona 500," team manager Tony Glover said.... Ward Button's win offered a happy ending to Speedweeks for owner Bill Davis. Burton's new teammate, Hut Stricklin, failed to qualify for the race.... It also was a happy day for Dodge, which won its third 500 and its first since Richard Petty drove to victory in 1974.... Daytona again was unpredictable. Two of the favorites, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr., were out of contention early. Stewart's was the first car out; his engine broke when he had completed just two laps. So much for the No. 20 getting off to a fast start. Junior cut a right front tire on lap 23 but didn't lose a lap. He cut a right rear tire on lap 94, putting him 12 laps down because the brake caliper broke off the housing. He then was caught up in the 18-car wreck and finished 29th.... Two years ago, Geoffrey Bodine watched the Daytona 500 from his hospital bed after surviving a spectacular crash in a truck race. He finished third Sunday after starting 35th. "I'm not over the hill yet," said Bodine, 52. His performance gained him additional support from the Miccosukee Indian Gaming Commission, which says it will back him at Talladega.... It pays to whine. Ford received three quarter-inch reductions on its spoiler leading up to the 500, and five Fords placed among the top seven finishers. Or maybe it was just that all of the good Chevrolets wrecked. Right. Even Roush Racing climbed off the deck; three of its cars finished among the top 12 (Kurt Busch fourth, Mark Martin sixth, Jeff Burton 12th), and Matt Kenseth led and ran up front before getting caught in the big wreck. Elliott Sadler, whose team gets some help from Roush, finished second. "We worked really hard on the handling and got our car to where we could hold it wide open all day" Kenseth said.... The rookie class shows promise. Ryan Newman finished seventh, pole winner Jimmie Johnson was 15th, and Shawna Robinson, despite running out of gas and breaking a drive shaft, wound up 24th.... Happy trails to Dave Marcis, whose 33rd 500, a Cup record, was his retirement party. Marcis' engine broke on lap 79, and he finished 42nd. --Lee Spencer

David Green is a senior editor for AMI Auto Worm Magazine and is a frequent contributor to THE SPORTING NEWS.

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