Auto Racing: Stewart seeks third victory

Auto Racing: Stewart seeks third victory
Pepsi 400 win would be historic for veteran driver

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The odds might be against Tony Stewart scoring a historic third consecutive victory in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday. Then again, the odds were against him winning two in a row, too.

In the wide-open, bump-drafting, close-quarter, anything-goes super speedway races, in which a driver can be 10th one lap and leading the next, it's a free-for-all at the finish line. Yet Stewart has proven himself the prohibitive favorite whenever the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series visits the track.

He has only one finish outside the top 10 in the past eight races here -- a last-place finish in the Daytona 500 in February. Stewart was leading that race when he crashed into Kurt Busch with 57 laps remaining.

No one has led more laps here in the past four years. Stewart paced the field for all but nine of the 160 laps in winning the Pepsi 400 in 2005.

"The restrictor plate races at Daytona are always a wild card race," said Stewart, driver of the No. 20 Home Depot-sponsored Chevrolet. "You never know (who is) going to win."

And that's exactly what has made his record here so impressive. A third consecutive win would equal the feat of David Pearson, who won here in 1972-74. Only Pearson, Stewart, Cale Yarborough and A.J. Foyt have won back-to-back summer races at Daytona.

SO SAD SAID: Even Boris Said's competitors sympathized with the cruel twist of fate Mother Nature issued during Friday's Pepsi 400 qualifying. Said was sitting in the pole position -- a full 1 mph faster than any other car -- when rain forced the cancellation of qualifying with 14 cars still in line for time trials.

Instead, the lineup for Saturday is determined by the points standings. Leader Jeff Gordon will start from the pole position.

Since Said, a part-time Cup entrant, isn't ranked among the top 35 in the owner's points standings, and isn't a former champion, his team didn't qualify for the race. In a matter of an hour, Said went from possibly winning his second consecutive pole position at Daytona to loading his car for an early trip back to the team's Charlotte, N.C., headquarters.

"I would rather we qualify and I end up 30th or 35th and let those guys do what they earned than to back into a second-place start," said driver Denny Hamlin. "It's a shame to see things didn't work out for those guys, but we're under a schedule so they've got to keep it."

Said was his typically upbeat self.

"It's disappointing, but there are worse things going on in this world," Said said. "It's July Fourth, we've got our men and women overseas fighting and losing their lives, protecting our freedom and we get to do this stuff, so it's not that big a deal."

THE LINEUP: Greg Biffle of Vancouver, Wash., will start Saturday's race 18th and Kasey Kahne of Enumclaw will line up 27th. Two-time Daytona 500 winner Michael Waltrip was fifth fastest in time trials, but was eliminated from the race lineup when qualifying was canceled.

RAIN OUT: The Busch Series race scheduled for Friday night was rained out and will be run Saturday at 6 a.m.

source ; seattlepi.nwsource.com