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February 10, 2010

Ken de la Bastide: Hendrick team to watch

Martin, Earnhardt, Johnson, Gordon in the running

There should be little doubt the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers and the Stewart/Haas team will be in the spotlight for the Daytona 500 on Sunday.

Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. will lead the 43-car starting grid to the green flag and, depending on what happens in the qualifying races on Thursday, should be followed closely by four-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson and four-time champion Jeff Gordon.

Add to the mix Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman in Hendrick-powered Chevrolets and it’s hard to imagine those six drivers being in a position to capture a win in NASCAR’s biggest event of the year.

During Saturday qualifying in addition to Martin and Earnhardt, Newman posted the third best time, Johnson was sixth quickest and Gordon came in 10th. Only Stewart was off the pace, posting only the 21st best time.

Of that group, only Martin and Johnson have failed to win a Daytona 500. Since Johnson has won just about everything else in Sprint Cup competition I’m tapping him as the favorite.

Martin enters the race as the popular choice, sorry Junior nation. Juan Pablo Montoya, who made the chase last year, qualified fifth fastest with Kyle Busch the fastest Toyota at ninth and Kurt Busch, clocking in seventh quick.

The Roush-Fenway foursome of Matt Kenseth, David Ragan, Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle were disappointments in qualifying.

Daytona is one of those unpredictable races because of drafting, restrictor plates and the inevitable big crash. During practice and in the Bud Shoot-out there were several multiple car crashes, so the stage is set for more of the same.

If the Daytona 500 is not captured by a Hendrick-powered car, I expect Kyle Busch to bounce back strong after missing the chase last year.

In other racing news: It was an impressive stock car debut for Danica Patrick in the crash-filled ARCA race last Saturday at Daytona. Patrick remained focused on staying on the bottom of the race track and made a nice recovery from a spin after contact with Nelson Piquet Jr.

In the final laps of the race Patrick stormed back from 24th to finish sixth. Lost in all the Danica hype was the fact that Bobby Gerhart used the right pit strategy and drove a flawless race to win at Daytona for the sixth time.

The key was to run laps and Patrick ran all 80 of the circuits. If there was one noticeable problem with her performance it was the lack of drafting with the other lead pack cars.

Obviously Patrick is a quick study, but competing Saturday in the Nationwide Series event against many Spirit Car regulars will be a new challenge.

I was not surprised that Milka Duno and Leilani Munter failed to complete 10 laps in the ARCA race. Both were late arrivals in a Lap 7 crash when Bill Baird got loose in Turn 2. It seemed like a long interval between the initial accident and Duno and Munter plowing into the carnage.

Contact Ken de la Bastide: ken.delabastide@kokomotribune.com.

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