And the time has come.  The race is almost here.  Some of you may ask, have I had enough NASCAR this past week?  The answer is a resounding "NO"!  I live, eat and breath NASCAR and could survive on NASCAR alone.

Here is some information on the Great American Race.  Enjoy it, and the list is attached!

My picks for Sunday's race?  I gotta go with Dale Earnhardt Jr.  Michael Waltrip, Jeff Gordon, and of the DEI guys.  And the sleeper of the race?  Ricky Rudd and Dale Jarrett.

Posted on Sun, Feb. 17, 2002

Ward Burton wins a wild Daytona 500
By DAVID POOLE
The Charlotte Observer

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Ward Burton won Sunday's Daytona 500 in a Dodge. He also was driving one.

After a series of circumstances almost too bizarre to imagine had finally played out, Burton held off Elliott Sadler and Geoffrey Bodine over a three-lap green-flag dash to the checkered flag in Winston Cup racing's biggest event.

Burton, 40, avoided all the wrecks and other wackiness that befell a garage full of would-be contenders to earn the biggest victory of his career.

"When we all started out in racing, all of us always took the Sunday off to watch the Daytona 500," Burton said. "You think about all of the heroes of the sport, like my hero Bobby Allison, and the guys who made the sport what it is today winning this race. I can't think of anything more special.

"Being able to make that victory lap, coming down and joining our team in victory circle, there's nothing you could experience to top that."

There's not much you could experience to top a lot of what went on during this exceedingly odd afternoon.

Burton led only the final five laps, inheriting the top spot when fellow Dodge driver Sterling Marlin was penalized for working on his car under the red flag.

Seriously.

Marlin was second and Burton was third behind Jeff Gordon on a restart with six laps left in the race. Marlin laid back as he approached the green flag, leaving a gap between his car and Gordon's Chevrolet in hopes of using that to build momentum for an eventual pass for the lead.

Gordon saw the move coming, however, and moved down to block Marlin's advance.

"If I had been in his shoes I would have tried to do the same thing," Marlin said. "…He kept coming down and we hooked bumpers and he spun out. I went on."

He didn't get far, though. Marlin's maneuver before the green flag had bunched up traffic behind him, starting a five-car wreck that had the yellow flying even before Marlin and Gordon hooked bumpers.

Marlin raced back to the line, edging Burton by a nose to keep the lead.  NASCAR then threw a red flag to stop the cars while the track was cleaned up for the finish.

Marlin knew he'd damaged his right-front quarterpanel in the contact with Gordon, so when the field stopped behind the pace car on the backstretch he climbed out of his Dodge and went around to check the damage. When he started pulling the sheet metal away, a NASCAR official jumped out of the pace car to stop him.

Teams are not allowed to work on their cars under the red flag, and Marlin's actions were clearly a violation of that rule. As punishment, he had to drop to end of the longest line of traffic on the restart and he was out of contention for the win.

"I saw (Dale) Earnhardt do it at Richmond one time," Marlin said his critical blunder. "He got out and cleaned off his windshield, so I thought it was OK. It don't guess it was."

Gordon was banished to the back on the restart, too, because he pitted under the yellow before the red flag when pit road was closed.

"I should have just given up when he (Marlin) got beside me," said Gordon, who fought back to finish ninth, one spot behind Marlin. "I still would have had a shot to win the thing."

Gordon had already survived the day's biggest wreck, a 21-car dust-up in Turn 1 that began when Kevin Harvick, running second, tried to block Gordon, in third, on Lap 149. Their Chevrolets made contact and Harvick went spinning up the Turn 1 banking in front of most of the field.

"I tried to hold my ground," Harvick said. "Gordon wanted the same spot I did. I tried to block, he came up and all hell broke loose."

Ken Schrader, Ricky Rudd and Jerry Nadeau, all of whom had been running near the front at various points in the race before then, were damaged in the crash.

Somehow, Burton missed it.

"I had just a moment to decide what to do," Burton said as he tried to avoid Harvick's spinning car. "Either way, it was going to be awful close. I tried to stay low and cut the wheel hard to the left. I actually got sideways and it couldn't have been more than a foot or two in front of my nose when I went by."

A number of potential contenders had been sidelined much earlier. Tony Stewart had lost an engine on Lap 3. Dale Earnhardt Jr. twice blew tires and once went sledding across the infield grass at 150 mph with no brakes. When the late-race craziness sent others to the wayside, Burton was there to take advantage.

Last year in this race, Burton led more laps than any other car but finished 35th when he got caught up in a late-race wreck. That luck turned around for him on Sunday.

It was his fourth career victory, his first since winning the Southern 500 at Darlington last September. That win in NASCAR's oldest 500-mile race was special for Burton. Sunday's was even better.

"You never really know what will happen here," he said. "It's an atmosphere that can play in your hand or play against you. We were in the right place at the right time."

That was first place, after 500 miles at Daytona.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Good Luck to all.  See ya on Tuesday, and have a great weekend!

Your  Momma

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Subscribe:  KnowYourNascar-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe:   KnowYourNascar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
List owner:  KnowYourNascar-owner@yahoogroups.com
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~