Stewart keeps the heat on

Tony Stewart showed again Thursday that he’s among the drivers to beat in Sunday’s Daytona 500, and Toyota showed it’s ready to compete against Stewart and the rest of the usual cast in the Nextel Cup series.

And just in case folks had begun to think that racing had finally replaced penalizing here, Jeff Gordon proved them wrong.

Stewart, a two-time series champion who has never won the Daytona 500, edged Dale Earnhardt Jr. to win the first of two 150-mile qualifying heats at the Daytona International Speedway. Only five days earlier, Stewart had won the Budweiser Shootout here in his Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet.

Gordon, three-time 500 winner and four-time Cup champion, won the second heat in a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet with a last-lap pass of Kurt Busch’s Penske Racing Dodge.

Then, however, Gordon’s car failed to pass post-race inspection -- it was about an inch too low -- and he learned that instead of starting from the second row Sunday, he would be starting at the rear, 42nd in the 43-car field.

NASCAR inspectors cleared Gordon’s team of cheating, saying that the violation was the result of an incorrectly installed shock absorber and that Gordon’s victory in the qualifier would stand, but that he would have to start the 500 from the rear.

“I’m mad about that right now,” Gordon said. “I hate to hear that.”

Earlier this week, three other teams were penalized for various violations.

The results of the heats set the field for the 500 behind the two drivers who won the front-row spots last Sunday in the first qualifying session: David Gilliland of Riverside and teammate Ricky Rudd in Robert Yates Racing Fords.

In the field, however, will be four Toyotas, marking the first time in decades that a foreign manufacturer qualified for a Cup-level stock car race.

Seven drivers at three new Toyota teams are using the Camry. One team, Michael Waltrip Racing, qualified all three of its drivers: Waltrip, Dale Jarrett and David Reutimann.

Waltrip made the race after NASCAR levied record penalties against his team Wednesday for cheating violations on his No. 55 Camry. He qualified using a backup car. David Blaney of Bill Davis Racing also qualified in a Toyota.

One Toyota driver who didn’t qualify was A.J. Allmendinger, the Hollister, Calif., native who’s trying to break into NASCAR with the new Red Bull team after leaving the Champ Car open-wheel racing series last year.

Allmendinger’s hopes vanished in the first 60-lap heat when he was collected in an accident triggered by Ford driver Robby Gordon of Orange on the 2.5-mile, high-banked Daytona oval.

The other Red Bull driver, Brian Vickers, also failed to qualify after cutting a tire and hitting the Turn 2 wall.

The most celebrated new NASCAR driver, former Formula One driver Juan Pablo Montoya, led the first 18 laps of the second qualifying heat for the team of Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates.

But the Colombia native’s No. 42 Dodge then suffered a broken wheel hub, which also sent Montoya into the Turn 2 wall and ended his day.

“It was just one of those things,” said Montoya, who already has qualified for the 500. “The car was fast, but now we start from the back.”

At one point in the first heat, it appeared that 72-year-old James Hylton might reach his goal of becoming the oldest driver ever to start a Cup race.

But his Chevrolet was passed by several cars with only a few laps remaining, pushing him too far down in the field and ending his chances.

Boris Said of Carlsbad, who already had qualified for the 500 last Sunday, based on his speed, finished 12th in the first heat in a Ford.

Said is mainly a road-racing driver who co-owns his small SoBe No Fear team.

“I just can’t believe I’m in the Daytona 500,” he said. “I have a one-in-43 shot to win.”

james.peltz@latimes.com

kevin.baxter@latimes.com