Strategies Vary for Earnhardts

Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s first Daytona 500 didn’t please his daddy. Of course, it may have been that Junior finished 13th and “the Intimidator” was 21st.

“He [Dale Jr.] didn’t work at all with nobody,” the father said. “He wanted to pass. That’s all he wanted to do, just pass, so that’s why he finished where he did.”

Little E wasn’t too happy with Senior, either.

“We had a real fast car, but I just couldn’t get anyone to follow me,” he said. “My dad too. I thought he would be the first one to help me, but he was the last person who wanted to stay behind me. We did more racing than I wanted to. . . . Everybody got to racing behind me and it was either pass or be passed.”

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On Tony Stewart’s first pit stop, last year’s rookie of the year hit a tire, damaging the nose and altering his car’s handling.

On his fourth stop, trying to avoid teammate Bobby Labonte coming out of his pit, Stewart hit Mike Lingerfelt, the front tire changer for his car. A tire from Labonte’s car was rolling across pit lane and Lingerfelt went after it when Stewart hit him.

Lingerfelt, 23, was taken to Halifax Medical Center where he underwent surgery for a fractured left leg.

“After that, it was hard to really think about the race when you’ve got a crew guy that’s hurt,” said Stewart, who finished 17th.

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In winning his third Daytona 500, Dale Jarrett collected a $1-million bonus from the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. to go with his $1,277,975 race earnings. But to hear him tell it, his biggest thrill came on pit road.

“It’s always nice to come down pit road and get the congratulations from other team members and your own crew,” Jarrett said, “but the thing today was Richard Petty came out, made his way across pit road and shook my hand. That sent chills up my spine. . .”

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Jarrett was not so pleased with the way he treated fellow Ford driver Mark Martin.

“Mark radioed [late in the race] and asked if he went high would I go with him to try and run down [Johnny] Benson and I said yes. We tried it the lap before [Jarrett got the lead] and didn’t get a very good run. I don’t know if Mark got out of the throttle, but we just didn’t get a very good run on Benson. Nothing else was said then.

“We came down through the tri-oval the next time, went into [turn] one and Mark went high. I went into the corner with every intention of going with Mark until I looked in my mirror and saw the 99 [Jeff Burton] car dove to the bottom of the race track. I’ve gotta protect my position at that point. My intentions was to go with Martin, but I couldn’t let the race get away from me. I hate that it happened that way.”

Martin’s reaction: “I got lied to.”