Sadler still adjusting to Yates-Roush partnership

Monday, Feb. 9, 2004 | 9:32 a.m.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Elliott Sadler admitted he was caught off guard the first time he pulled his Robert Yates Racing Ford into the garage during testing last month at Daytona International Speedway and both Yates and Jack Roush peeked under his hood.

The NASCAR team owners pooled their engine-building operations late last year, but it still was an uncommon site for Sadler to see the two rivals collaborating on the same engine.

"I think it was weird for me coming down here testing and pulling up in the garage and having Jack and Robert both under the hood, tuning on the intake or tuning on the carburetor or trying this or trying that," Sadler said.

So imagine how strange it must have been for Roush, who said that he and Yates would routinely avoid having any contact during a racing season before the merger.

"I certainly had respect for (Yates) and I hope he had respect for me but from the beginning of the racing season, which would be Daytona, until the end, which used to be Atlanta, we wouldn't talk to one another," Roush said after his driver, Greg Biffle, won the pole Sunday for the Daytona 500.

"We wouldn't acknowledge one another, we wouldn't have eye contact, we wouldn't shake hands," Roush added. "By all means, we wouldn't wish one another good luck.

"We were struggling and competing for the same bit of support that Ford would give somebody. We wanted to have as much of it as we could and we competed on the racetracks because we had very similar hardware. If (Ford) invested money on a development program with Robert, they wouldn't share it with me and if they invested with me, I insisted they wouldn't give it to Robert."

The "sibling rivalry," as Roush put it, came to an end when officials from Ford saw it as a hindrance to their overall NASCAR program.

"Ford said, 'why don't you guys cooperate,' " Roush said. "I offered to share an engine and (Yates) tapped me on the shoulder at Atlanta (Motor Speedway) and said, 'hey, I know you're getting ready to build a shop in North Carolina; why don't you buy half of mine and you won't have to build a new shop.'

"So, we're 50-50 partners to the dirt right now and we're committed to go down the road. Our race teams are going to run closer together than they could have otherwise."

NEWMAN STRUGGLES: Ryan Newman, who lead the Nextel Cup Series with 11 poles last season, was an uncharacteristic 42nd among the 45 qualifiers Sunday.

Newman, however, didn't blame the gusting winds for spoiling his qualifying run -- as did several other drivers.

"I think we've got the sticky decals on (the car) instead of the slick decals," Newman joked. "We knew we weren't going to be super fast, but we didn't think we were going to be that slow."

NO RESPECT: NASCAR Nextel Cup rookie Brendan Gaughan of Las Vegas showed up for Daytona 500 qualifying Sunday with his name misspelled on his driver's uniform.

Embroidered across the waist of his Kodak Racing uniform was "Brendan Gaughn." Gaughan, a Bishop Gorman High grad, said his other suit -- with his name spelled correctly -- did not yet have all of his sponsors' logos on it.

IROC CRASH: Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves was involved in a single-car crash during Sunday's practice for Friday's IROC season opener at Daytona.

Castroneves was not injured in the incident.