Earnhardt Wins Relatively Easily

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Coming from a last-place start, Dale Earnhardt Jr. seemed to be toying with the field Saturday night as he drove his Budweiser Chevrolet to a two-car-length victory over Jeff Gordon in the Budweiser Shootout.

A crowd estimated at 80,000, despite a chillier-than-normal central Florida night, was treated to an exciting 70-lap race that had seven of 19 starters lead at least one lap. But despite the shuffling of the field, from the moment Little E moved up through the 180-mph traffic in 16 laps it seemed obvious that the red No. 8 would win.

It was Earnhardt’s first Budweiser win. His father won the race six times.

It was the fourth win by a Dale Earnhardt Inc. car in the last five restrictor plate races at Daytona International Speedway. Junior won the summer Pepsi 400 in 2001 and his teammate, Michael Waltrip, won the 2001 Daytona 500 and 2002 Pepsi 400. Waltrip did not drive in the Shootout because he failed to win a pole last season.

The Shootout, which paid $205,000 to Earnhardt, was for 2002 pole winners and former Shootout winners. Earnhardt earned his way in with poles at Kansas and Michigan.

Gordon, like Earnhardt, came from the back to lead the most laps, 30, but although Earnhardt led for only 13 laps, the feeling was that he could have led as many as he wanted.

“There was so much happening there the last few laps, I can’t even remember how I got the lead,” said Earnhardt, who swept past Gordon and Kurt Busch with a daring outside pass going into the third turn on Lap 65. “It was a tough win, I made contact with the 97 [Busch] car and I wondered if I was going to get back in front.

“I was stuck behind a three-wide toward the end. It was like a wall, you couldn’t get around. It finally broke up and me and Rusty [Wallace] took off. He pushed me and I was surprised he didn’t go with me. I guess he saw me getting bounced around and went to the bottom. Then we ended up winning by going around the top.”

Matt Kenseth finished third in a Ford and Ryan Newman was fourth in a Dodge.

There were no accidents and no caution flags. Geoffrey Bodine, who started on the pole through a drawing, was the only dropout because of faulty suspension.

Earnhardt averaged 180.827 mph for the 175-mile race.

Chase Montgomery, driving a Pontiac owned by rock star Alice Cooper, won the ARCA preliminary feature, the Advance Discount Auto Parts 200.