An upstart driver who’d almost gone undiscovered, a veteran coming out of retirement and a car owner back from the brink of giving up joined forces to dominate the front row in Daytona 500 pole qualifying Sunday.
Californian David Gilliland, 30, who a year ago wondered if he’d ever rise above the West Coast short tracks, won the pole for next Sunday’s 500 at 186.320 m.p.h.
Ricky Rudd, 50, who spent last year on his farm in North Carolina, grabbed the second spot at 185.609.
Both drove Fords owned by Robert Yates, 63, whose team had hit rock bottom last year after more than a decade as the team to beat at Daytona.
“This is a good day for us, the best we’ve had in a while,” Yates said, choking up. “There was a time last year when I felt like I might be the problem.”
The man who started by building engines for Darrell Waltrip in the 1970s and then as an owner sent Davey Allison, Ernie Irvan and Dale Jarrett to stardom feared NASCAR racing had passed him by.
But the turnaround started in June, though none of them knew it then. That’s when Gilliland came out of nowhere, in an unsponsored car, to win a Busch Series race at Kentucky Speedway and seize the attention of every major team owner in the Nextel Cup series.
“I was in my motor home at Michigan [at a Cup race] watching the Kentucky race on TV,” Yates said. “Then Doug (Yates, the owner’s son) called me and said, `We just found our new driver. . . . That guy who just won the race. We’re going to sign him. That’s the cat. He doesn’t choke.'”
With the team still disintegrating, Elliott Sadler quit in August, and Yates signed Gilliland to finish the year. That’s why he isn’t listed as a rookie this year in the Cup series, though he is a rookie at Daytona.
Vital as the Busch win was, just the pole position here hit the top of Gilliland’s lifetime thrill chart. That was boosted by the fact that one night earlier, in his first outing on this track, he’d finished second to Tony Stewart in the Bud Shootout.
“This, I have to say, is bigger,” Gilliland said. “Daytona is the biggest race. It’s something I’ve dreamed of doing my whole life. It’s something I’ll never forget.”
Yates had feared he’d have to run a one-car team with Gilliland this season, on a tour dominated by multicar teams. But he got a second sponsor late last year and persuaded Rudd to come out of retirement to replace Jarrett, who’d jumped to a Toyota team.
The two front-row spots are the only ones guaranteed for the 500. The rest of the starting order will be determined in twin 150-mile qualifying races Thursday.
The Yates team led an onslaught of dark horses with the six quickest laps Sunday. Not until Jeff Gordon, only seventh fastest, did an unsurprising name show up on the speed charts.
Another pair of teammates, upstart David Stremme and Formula One convert Juan Pablo Montoya, were third and fourth fastest in Dodges owned by Chip Ganassi.
Then came rookie David Ragan in the Roush Racing Ford previously driven by Mark Martin, followed by the Ford of the inimitable Boris Said, the road-racing specialist who’s a favorite among Cup drivers.
Despite his transfer from open-wheel cars that weigh less than half what Cup cars do, Montoya said of making a qualifying run on high-banked Daytona: “There’s not much to it. My first lap here, when I came for the test [in January], I asked, `Is it the same as Talladega?’ (where he’d run a little last year). They said yeah. So I went out wide open, straight out, and it was fine.”
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