Daytona Beach, Feb 13: As usual, everybody is talking about Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Michael Waltrip going into a weekend of restrictor-plate racing. And that suits Elliott Sadler just fine.
Earnhardt Jr. and Sadler were the winners Thursday in the Gatorade 125 qualifying races that set the tone as well as the starting order for Sunday's Daytona 500.
Earnhardt Jr. won the first 125-miler, passing his Dale Earnhardt Inc. teammate Waltrip for the lead on Lap 37 and holding off Tony Stewart over the final laps.
Afterward, there was some pretty snappy patter among the principals at DEI suggesting that strain might be eroding into an era of good feeling that has helped those two drivers win nine of the sport's past 12 restrictor-plate races.
"I was on the outside at one point in the race early ... and he (Waltrip) went to the inside and left me by myself," Earnhardt Jr. said. "That kind of wrote the script for the rest of the race for me. I was out there on my own from then on out."



Tony Eury Sr., crew chief for Earnhardt Jr., chastised Waltrip for being a less than an ideal teammate for that early race move.



"Those cats on pit road of the 8," Waltrip said of Earnhardt Jr.'s team. "You just have to take it with a grain of salt when you hear some of the stuff they come up with. ...I am amazed those crew guys can carry on like that."



Regardless of all the DEI intramural smack-talk, Earnhardt Jr. did look awfully good in his Chevrolet in winning his 125-miler for the second straight year. It means he'll start third in the Daytona 500, and it also means that he will once again be the driver most people will have their eye on in the main event of Speedweeks.


Bureau Report