DAYTONA BEACH, Fla., Feb. 19 -- After 22 fruitless attempts in the Daytona 500, Rusty Wallace is running out of ways to lose NASCAR's biggest race. He has blown an engine, smacked concrete walls and barrel-rolled down the backstretch. He has come up short in a Buick in the 1980s, a Pontiac in the '90s and a Ford in the 21st century.
On Sunday, he'll take his final crack at winning the Great American Race at Daytona International Speedway -- this time, in a shiny Dodge Charger.
Tony Stewart steers his No. 33 Chevrolet to victory in the Hershey's 300. Stewart dodged a collision and raced across on the grass for his second win in three days.
(Rick Fowler -- Reuters)
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| _____ Daytona 500 _____
• Jeff Gordon clinches his third Daytona 500 title, edging Kurt Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Sunday.
• Final Results
• Hendrick Motorsports overcomes tragic plane crash to remain favored team in Daytona.
• Michael Waltrip edges teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the early qualifying race and Tony Stewart wins the nightcap.
• The Daytona 500 has served as the personal playground lately for Team Earnhardt.
_____ Multimedia _____
• Audio: washingtonpost.com's Mike Snyder reports after Jeff Gordon's tight victory Sunday.
• Photos
• Joe Gibbs talks about the parallels between football and NASCAR and the challenges and rewards of both.
• Audio: Gibbs talks about his future in auto racing and pro football. (Jan. 26)
_____ On Our Site _____
• Interactive guide to NASCAR's 36-race Nextel Cup series, including photos, schedules, profiles, statistics and more.
• Previous winners
_____ Live Online _____
• The Post's Liz Clarke was talking racing' Friday. Read the transcript.
_____ Flashback _____
• Six years after his father won NASCAR's grandest race, Dale Earnhardt Jr. roars to victory in the '04 Daytona 500.
• Gallery
_____ Nextel Cup Basics _____
• Results
• Schedule
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• Nextel Cup page
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At 48, Wallace is retiring at the end of the 2005 season. Despite an impressive résumé that includes a championship in 1989, 55 victories and more than $43 million in winnings, NASCAR's perennially upbeat hard-charger faces the prospect of leaving stock-car racing without its most coveted trophy.
Mark Martin faces the same prospect. At 46, he'll try for a 21st and final time on Sunday to win his first Daytona 500, having declared 2005 his final season, as well.
That guarantees that at least one of the popular veterans will fail to win Daytona in an otherwise storybook career. To the drivers, mechanics and owners who have raced against them, it won't detract from their achievements.
"It might be the biggest race there is, but it's just one race," says Richard Petty, who won seven NASCAR championships and seven Daytona 500s before retiring in 1992.
NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly, who owns a team in NASCAR's Grand National ranks, sees it much the same, having coming up short in four consecutive Super Bowls with the Buffalo Bills.
"It's one race; it's one football game," Kelly said. "Even though Karl Malone didn't win an NBA championship, that shouldn't determine the success he had throughout his career. No one game should determine a person's career. In football, it's a team sport; in racing, it's a team sport."
Winning any NASCAR race is hard. There are a million variables over a 500-mile race that can scuttle top equipment and the best-laid plans: Flat tires, botched pit stops, the impetuousness of inexperienced drivers and the utterly unexpected -- like the seagull that plowed into Dale Earnhardt's Chevrolet one year, fouling the car's handling in an otherwise promising Daytona 500.
The slightest glitch has even greater impact at Daytona and Talladega (Ala.) superspeedways, where NASCAR-mandated carburetor restrictor plates limit horsepower. In doing so, the plates keep the cars bunched up in thick packs and give almost every driver a chance of winning as long as they're running with the leaders on the last lap.
Restrictor plates are required on just four of the 36 races that comprise the Nextel Cup schedule. That's why car owner Jack Roush believes that winning the Daytona 500 doesn't signify much about a team's prospects of a successful season.
"The car combinations are not at all similar to what we race everyplace else," said Roush. "Unless you have brilliance in a pit crew or ineptitude in a pit crew, there's really not much of a relationship between the performance you'd expect from a team at Daytona as it would relate to the other places."
By extension, Roush argues, winning at Daytona doesn't signify much about a driver's ability. As Roush views it, the driver isn't much of a factor at Daytona -- except to the extent that he is respected by his fellow racers, who can make his job easier by giving him room to maneuver on the track.
"You take that out of the equation, and it's almost a nonevent for a driver," said Roush, who is chasing his third consecutive NASCAR championship but has never won a Daytona 500. "Not that a driver can't get hurt, or not that a driver can't make a mistake that would cause a problem. But the driver, for all the skill and ability and nerve and experience, has less effect on the outcome here than most places."
