'Pleasantly surprised'

Fords content despite concern over spoiler changes

By Denise N. Maloof, CNNSI.com

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- After all the discussion and controversy about Ford teams' Speed Weeks disadvantage, Sunday's benediction on the subject appeared in black-and-white: Two Dodges, two Chevrolets, one Pontiac and five Fords in the top 10 of the 44th Daytona 500.

"Early in the race our car kept coming better and better. And as the race wore on, Fords -- it seemed to help them," said Eddie Wood, co-owner of Elliott Sadler's No. 21 Ford, which finished second. "I don't know if the track was getting tighter or what. I was a little surprised, but pleasantly surprised."

So were Ford teams, which received a total of one-half inch off their spoilers in two rules changes after Chevrolet dominated first-round qualifying, the Budweiser Shootout and Thursday's twin 125-mile qualifying races.

On Sunday, the top-10 Ford finishers behind Sadler were Geoffrey Bodine (3rd), Kurt Busch (4th), Mark Martin (6th) and Ryan Newman (7th). Busch led 16 laps, Kenseth led four and Jeff Burton (12th) led two laps. Nine cautions did clear some of the day's traffic, but the Fords that escaped also excelled.

"NASCAR made an effort to make it close," said Jack Roush, owner of the Busch, Burton and Martin teams. "We had a race [Sunday]. It was race affected in part by the number of accidents we had, which were mundane in that nobody got hurt, happily. It made for a very exciting day and if NASCAR hadn't have made the changes that they had, well, then it would have been a GM parade with the Ford cars at the back."

NASCAR's second Speed Weeks rule tweak, which included a quarter-inch off Dodge spoilers, was announced Friday morning. Teams only had a single one-hour practice to implement it, and Saturday's two Winston Cup practices were washed out by rain.

"That's probably good for us," Wood said. "We might have messed it up."

"We were dialed in from the 125s," Busch said. "So we were happy with it."

Several drivers, Rusty Wallace among them, had worried that the cumulative changes would destabilize the Fords. Under race conditions Sunday, however, the secret -- according to Kenseth -- was balancing the wildness with power.

"[Sunday] was the most competitive we've been all week," said Kenseth, who ran in the top 10 until getting caught in an 18-car melee on lap 150. "We worked really hard on our handling and we got our car to handle so we could hold it wide open all day, and that seemed to be a big advantage."

"They kept knocking the rear blade off of it and that kept knocking downforce out of it, too," Busch said. "We had a loose race car, but that made us good on a longer run. We got out front and could hang for a while because all of the Chevy and GM cars tore themselves up."

 

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