07/05/2009

By MARK LONG  / Associated Press

Those double-file restarts designed to spice up NASCAR racing sure didn't sit too well with Joe Gibbs on Saturday night.

Points leader Tony Stewart used the double-file restarts to split up Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch late in the race, and it was a big reason the two-time series champion won the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

"For us, it was a problem because they way we were staggered," Gibbs said. "We couldn't get our two cars the way we'd like to get them. We had them for a while there, then that caution came up and it kept catching us where we could not really get lined up where we wanted to down the stretch there."

Had Hamlin and Busch been able to get lined up together, they almost certainly would have chased down Stewart. Hamlin did manage to push Busch to the front following the final restart with four laps remaining, but it didn't last. Hamlin dropped back, then Stewart and Jimmie Johnson teamed up to get a run on Busch. Busch tried to block Stewart, but ended up wrecking violently a few hundred yards from the finish line.

"It was tough at the end of the race right there," Hamlin said. "I knew it was going to be all about positioning and where you put yourself, and I felt good about being on the outside right there on that restart with about five to go.

"But I knew that my help from (Johnson) was going to be limited. I knew he was going to dump me just as soon as he could. He wasn't going to help push me past (Stewart) for sure. ... The best chance for one of our cars to win was for me to push the 18 on the last lap."

Stewart made it tough.

He said his lane choices were specifically designed to split the Gibbs guys up. The decision paid off, too.

"We had no choice but to take the bottom line and split those two guys up," Stewart said. "We had to keep those guys separated to give ourselves a shot."

NASCAR implemented double-file restarts last month, lining the field up side-by-side like it is at the beginning of races and giving the leader the option of starting on the inside lane or the outside.

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MARTIN'S MISERY: Mark Martin has never enjoyed Daytona International Speedway, not even when he nearly won the 2008 Daytona 500.

Martin, who despises restrictor-plate racing that keeps cars bunched together and often leads to big wrecks, now has more reason to hate the famed track. Martin was involved in the first accident of the Coke Zero 400 on Saturday night. Former Roush Racing teammate Matt Kenseth tapped the rear off Martin's car coming off turn two on lap 13 and sent the 50-year-old driver spinning across the track.

"I just pinched him," said Martin, who finished 38th. "It's my fault.

He was taken to the infield care center, treated and released.

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PETTY'S PUSH: Seven-time NASCAR champion Richard Petty believes the inaugural Hall of Fame induction class should include the people who started the sport and not the ones who carried it forward.

That could leave the King out of the Hall of Fame when the inductees are announced.

"I don't know how they're going to look at," Petty said this week. "It's going to be a tough decision. Do you put both Frances in or do you put one in? Do you put Richard Petty in? Do you put (Dale) Earnhardt in? If you start looking at records, then some of our records are different and first thing you know, if you're not careful, you're going to put personalities in.

"That's not what you need in a Hall of Fame. You need the people that done the job. If I'm not one of them, that's fine with me."

Petty, Earnhardt, NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. and son Bill France Jr. are considered front-runners for the inaugural five-person class.

But Petty said car owner Raymond Parks and driver Robert "Red" Byron, who teamed up to win NASCAR's first championship in 1949, should receive strong consideration from the selection committee.

"We don't want to get into a deal where it's a popularity contest," Petty said. "It's going to be really hard and it's not going to be accepted by all people, no matter who they put it. ... I would put the people that got it started, the ones that planted the seed. Those are the people I think that need to go into the Hall of Fame to begin with."

The 25 nominees were announced Thursday. The inductees will be announced in October and honored next May at the new Hall of Fame facility in Charlotte, N.C.

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LUG NUTS: Three drivers had to start at the back of the pack in Saturday's race. Greg Biffle and Sam Hornish Jr. went to the rear of the field because they switched to backup cars following an accident during practice Thursday. David Reutimann joined them back there because his team swapped engines following practice. ... It was a short night for drivers Dave Blaney and Patrick Carpentier. No one expected them to finish the race in the low-budget teams often referred to as "start-and-park" cars, but few could have anticipated them heading home this early. Blaney took his No. 66 Toyota to the garage after just two laps. Carpentier wasn't much better. He turned 18 laps before calling it quits.