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Saturday, June 30
Drivers ready for emotional weekend
Associated Press
Ever since it opened in 1959, Daytona International Speedway has
been a place where a victory -- or simply a strong showing -- could
build careers and earn bragging rights.
Thanks to restricted engines, however, racing on the historic
2½-mile, high-banked oval has become more tense and treacherous
than ever.
|  | | Dale Earnhardt will be on everybody's mind as the Winston Cup Series returns to Daytona. |
And the reminders of the death of superstar Dale Earnhardt in a
crash on the final turn of the final lap of February's Daytona 500
has made returning here for the July 7 Pepsi 400 even harder.
Traditionally, the July race is Daytona is not only the midway
point in the long season, it's a family week in which drivers and
crews bring their wives and children along for some sun and fun in
the resort city.
"It's going to be a difficult time this time," said 1999
Winston Cup champ Dale Jarrett. "Normally, going through the
tunnel there, I get a really good feeling because I've been
fortunate to have a lot of success and I look forward to going to
Daytona and racing.
"I don't think that's going to be the case. I don't think I've
going to be thinking about the success that I've had there because
I'm sure there will be other emotions. It's going to be a tough
time for all of us, but it's something we have to work through."
Carburetor restrictor plates, required by NASCAR to dampen
horsepower to keep the 3,400-pound stock cars under 200 mph on the
tracks in Daytona and Talladega -- the two longest and fastest ovals
on the circuit -- made racing uncomfortable and difficult for the
drivers even before Earnhardt's death.
Rules changes last summer gave the cars a little extra throttle
response -- which the drivers had begged for -- but it also made the
racing even tighter and more difficult, with nearly constant two-
and three-wide freight trains of cars throughout the long races.
"You can't take a deep breath," said Jeff Gordon, the current
series leader and one of the most successful racers in recent years
at both tracks. "After the races at Daytona and Talladega, I've
had a gigantic headache. It's just constant tension. It's not much
fun."
The drivers got through the Talladega race in April without any
serious wrecks or injuries, but the fact that this is the first
time back in Daytona since Earnhardt's death is weighing heavily on
most minds.
"I'm just going to try not to think about it," said Jeremy
Mayfield, echoing a lot of other drivers. "I'm just going to try
to block it out and go. It's going to be weird, but what do you do?
Everybody has to deal with what happened in their own way."
Jeff Burton is more concerned with the realities of racing in
Daytona than with the memories that might be dredged up this week.
"I've been asked a lot about going back to where Earnhardt got
killed, but I don't look at it that way," Burton said. "I don't
associate the racetrack with the place where Dale Earnhardt got
killed at.
"All the concerns that everybody had going to Talladega (in
April), everybody still has going to Daytona, even though we got
through Talladega without a wreck. That was luck."
In February, before the Earnhardt wreck, there was a typical
restrictor-plate racing crash involving 18 of the 43 cars in the
field.
"There's no reason to think that won't happen again," Burton
said. "The rules still bunch us up so much that one mistake by one
person is all it takes."
Elliott Sadler, who got his first career win earlier this
season, said, "We still have a job to do. We have to race and we
know it's going to be dangerous. It's going to be bumper-to-bumper
and three-wide pretty much the whole race, but we've got to do the
best job we can to figure out how to win.
"I mean, it's still a great race to win. It's Daytona."
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