Gordon says patience will be key in Daytona 500

Tuesday, Feb. 10, 1998 | 9:41 a.m.

Three months?

"As soon as that last race is over in Atlanta, you start getting ready for Daytona," defending Winston Cup champion Jeff Gordon said Monday. "That's how much preparation goes into it."

"It" would be the Daytona 500, NASCAR's season-opening showpiece, a $7 million event that will pay the winner $1 million.

Gordon would claim that prize should he successfully defend his title in the greatest of all stock car races. But he won't do so by being impatient either in preparing for the race or running in it.

The first part is over. Gordon and his brethren have been planning, building and testing since the November day he won his second series title.

Now they have entered the second phase, one almost as critical as the race itself.

"The true test is once you get here and you've got a week of practice," he said. "It's utilizing that to the best of your ability that's going to get you into contention when Sunday rolls around."

With 27 of his 29 career victories spread over the last three seasons, the 26-year-old Gordon apparently grasps the value of this segment. So, what is his focus?

"Just trying to come up with the combination that works well on long runs, on old tires, when everything starts to go away," he said. "The handling of the race car is very critical."

Far more critical than it was last Sunday, when Gordon blew the Bud Shootout by failing to come up to speed quickly enough on a restart on the final lap of the non-points race for 1997 pole winners. The 75-mile sprint, the first tuneup for the Daytona 500, is simply a speed race.

"You take a few more risks and chances than you would in the Daytona 500," he said. "You have a lot more time and can have more patience in the 500 than you can in the Shootout."

But no one should expect Gordon to be passive once the race starts Sunday.

"I don't know anybody that doesn't like to be up front," he said. "I think when they didn't run restrictor plates here then maybe that was like the guinea pig position to be up front. They were going to blow by you."

Restrictor plates are devices attached to the carburetors to slow the cars, equalizing competition and making passing more difficult on NASCAR's biggest tracks - Daytona International Speedway and its sister track at Talladega, Ala.

"These days you want to be up front and do all the blocking you can," he said.

Despite the final-lap problem, Gordon excelled at that in the closing laps of the Bud Shootout.

He proved that his best ally could be time.

That's something 46-year-old Dale Earnhardt might be running out of in his quest to win the Daytona 500. The seven-time champion is 0-for-19 in the race, and lives more in fear of being teased about that by Darrell Waltrip than what might be said if he closed his magnificent career without winning it.

Waltrip, himself a three-time champion with 84 career victories, won the Daytona 500 on his 17th try.

"It don't eat at me or anything," said Earnhardt, also mired in a career-worst 59-race losing streak. "I want to win it real bad. But if I end my career without winning the Daytona 500, it won't mean I've failed or anything.

"I've won a few other races and those championships, and I'm not done, yet. But I don't want Waltrip sitting in a rocking chair ribbing me about his Daytona 500 win and me not having won one."