Burton Has the Hot Wheels

Jeff Burton warmed up a shivering crowd at Daytona International Speedway with a 189.151-mph lap Sunday that earned the pole position for next week’s Daytona 500.

Burton, a 13-year veteran driving the No. 31 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing, was the only driver to exceed 189 mph on a cold, blustery day of front-row qualifying.

Starting next to Burton next Sunday will be another Jeff, last name Gordon, who qualified second in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet with a speed of 188.877 mph. Gordon won last year’s Daytona 500.

The rest of the 43-car field will be determined Thursday with the top finishers from two 150-mile qualifying races.

Meanwhile, rookie Denny Hamlin of Virginia held off teammate and defending Nextel Cup champion Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. in a wild finish to win NASCAR’s first race of the season, the non-points Budweiser Shootout sprint over the 2.5-mile, high-banked Daytona oval.

It was so wild, in fact, that the feisty Stewart said all the bumping among the cars as they drafted each other at nearly 200 mph was “out of control” and that “we’re going to kill somebody” unless NASCAR takes tougher steps to control the drivers.

Earnhardt agreed that the Shootout was “about as wild as we can possibly be” because of all the “bump-drafting,” which mainly involves drivers ramming into the rear bumpers of cars ahead of them as they jostle for position. The danger is that the cars ahead could be shoved out of control.

It’s a problem most prevalent at Daytona and the Talladega superspeedway in Alabama, the two big tracks where NASCAR-mandated carburetor restrictor plates -- which are mainly aimed at curbing race speeds for safety -- also keep the field bunched together.

But Earnhardt said Sunday’s action was a function of the Shootout’s short distance, which forces drivers to quickly push to the front. “Guys are going to race like that. I’m going to race like that,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t know how you fix it.”

The drivers won’t be as aggressive next Sunday as they try to protect their cars during the 500-mile run, he added.

NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said Stewart “can be emotional at times but when Tony speaks, we’re certainly going to listen to him, as we would other drivers.

“We’ll try to find a solution,” Hunter added, but that’s unlikely to happen before the Daytona 500.

The 70-lap Shootout comprises drivers who won poles last year and former Shootout winners. Hamlin, 25, who began driving a Nextel Cup Chevrolet for Joe Gibbs Racing late last year, made the field by winning the pole at Phoenix in November.

The Shootout originally was scheduled for Saturday night but was washed out by rain. After the storm cleared Sunday, temperatures plummeted to the low 40s, and a stiff breeze dropped the wind-chill factor into the 30s.

Winning the pole was a big lift for Burton, 38, whose career has sagged in recent years. He last won in 2001.

But the Virginian has won at Daytona before, taking the July race here in 2000.

“We came here with high expectations, and we feel pretty good about this,” Burton said after making his qualifying lap. “We’re just hoping it will stand.”

It did, giving Childress -- longtime team owner for the late Dale Earnhardt -- his first pole in the Daytona 500 since 2003, when driver Jeff Green led the field.

Gordon, 34, said it was “a big, big deal to be on that front row,” but that his team would next have to make sure his Chevrolet runs fast in traffic. He can learn that in whichever of the qualifying races he runs Thursday.

Another Childress driver, Clint Bowyer, posted the fastest lap for a rookie Sunday at 187.786 mph, the seventh-fasted overall.

NASCAR also announced that the qualifying times of Jimmie Johnson, who qualified fifth, and Terry Labonte, who was 28th, were thrown out because their Chevrolets failed post-race inspections. Both drivers can still get into the 500 by qualifying in the twin races Thursday, but they have to start at the rear of the field in those heats, officials said.

COMPLETE RESULTS: D13