Ego? Maybe that's why two of the three letters spell 'go'

Qualifying set Friday at Daytona

DAVID POOLE

The Charlotte Observer

Thursday, Jul. 03, 2008

• David Poole's blog | No rain - yet - on qualifying day parade
• Qualifying order | How the Cup cars will go out on Friday
• First practice | Kurt Busch leads way early at Daytona
• So over it | Kyle Busch still mad at Montoya? 'That was last week'
• Who asked you? | Second guessing easy for armchair crew chiefs, Stewart says

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Race car drivers, Jeff Burton said, like to be in the lead.

"To be honest, some of it is ego," Burton said Thursday at Daytona International Speedway, where qualifying for the Coke Zero 400 is scheduled for Friday afternoon.

"A driver's ego gets him into positions he really doesn't want to be in sometimes. It's not always in your best interest to be leading."

Burton found this out first-hand in February's Daytona 500. On a restart with three laps remaining, he was leading the sport's biggest race.

"That's what, your whole life, you've been trying to do," Burton said. "But I thought, 'Oh boy, we're in trouble.' "

That's because Burton knew that cars would be lining up behind him to challenge for the lead as soon as everyone worked back up to speed. And he was right - Tony Stewart passed him on the first lap after the green flag.

But Stewart didn't win, either. For the third straight race at Daytona, the driver leading at the white flag was not the winner. This time, Ryan Newman got a big drafting push from Penske Racing teammate Kurt Busch and won the 500.

Last July, Jamie McMurray and Kyle Busch traded the lead five times over the final six laps as McMurray rallied off the final turn for the win. In the 2007 Daytona 500, Kevin Harvick pulled to the outside on the final run down the backstretch and edged Mark Martin at the finish.

In a sport in which the term "track position" seems to become more important each week, the meaning of those words can be different here. It's not just about where you are in the running order, it's also about where you put your car on the track.

"At other race tracks, track position is being in the right place with 50 laps to go so you can be in the right place on the last lap," Burton said. "Here, it's more about being in the right place and the last lap. You can be running dead last on the lead lap with 50 to go and still win."

Burton was fifth fastest in Thursday's Cup practice. Kurt Busch had the fastest lap, but he blew a right-front tire late in the session. Busch hit the wall in the No. 2 Dodge that finished second in February, forcing him to a backup car. A second practice session was rained out.

Qualifying for Saturday night’s race is scheduled for 4 p.m. Friday.

Jeff Gordon has six career points race victories at Daytona and has run more than 5,200 laps in his 31 career Daytona 500 and Coke Zero 400 starts. The lessons he's learned, he said, help him try to get the No. 24 Chevrolet where it needs to be when it needs to be there.

"That's where experience works out pretty well," Gordon said. "You get a sense of which line is starting to fade and when a line is picking up."

But Gordon said that has changed somewhat now that the new Sprint Cup car is being used at this 2.5-mile track.

"The thing about this car is the momentum gets picked up so fast that you can't just jump in front of a line," Gordon said. "I think that's why Tony Stewart lost (this year's 500). I think he knew if he jumped up in front of that outside line there was possibly going to be a big wreck."

But, timed perfectly, the bump a driver gets in the draft can provide the difference between winning and losing.

"If you can sense the momentum shifting and changing, you've got to get there in a hurry," Gordon said. "You've got to make sure those guys have nowhere to go but your rear bumper and make sure when they get to you and hit you, it doesn't spin you out."

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