Jeff Gordon On the Track

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. February 15, 2003; Keith Parsons writing for the AP reported that while his competitors spent a furious final practice getting ready for the Daytona 500, Robby Gordon simply hung out in the garage.

Eight laps in the first session was all he needed Saturday.

"We're done," he said. "We've got about 25 miles on our race engine. You don't want to put any extra miles on your engine, and you also don't want to take any unnecessary risks out there if somebody gets together."

Gordon posted the eighth-fastest speed in his brief appearance on the track, running a lap of 187.872 mph in a Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. After winning his 125-mile qualifying race earlier in the week, he figures to be one of the favorites Sunday, along with his teammate and pole-sitter Jeff Green, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Michael Waltrip.

Earnhardt and Waltrip drive for Dale Earnhardt, Inc., which has won six of the past eight restrictor plate races.

"I don't know if we're THE favorite," Gordon said. "I watched Junior dominate in his qualifying race, and we were pretty strong in ours. We'll just have to hope we make the right decisions in the race, with pit strategy and everything else.

"Hopefully, when I pull out of line to go, somebody goes with me."

The RCR drivers already have a bit of a rivalry with their DEI counterparts, rooted in the fact that the late Dale Earnhardt spent the bulk of his career driving for Childress.

There also have been a few on-track incidents in the past couple of years between the teams, and this week, they've been at the front of the pack during most of the activity.

After Junior won his qualifying race Thursday, he talked about the difficulty of racing with Childress' drivers.

"I always will wish Richard well," he said. "I don't necessarily see eye to eye with every one of his drivers, but they ain't been there that long and they might not be there for much longer."

He never disclosed which of the three drivers he was talking about - Kevin Harvick also drives for Childress - but Gordon had his own opinion.

"Maybe RCR has closed that gap on them, and DEI is starting to feel a little threatened," he said. "That's why Junior's saying the things he's saying, trying to get us wound up a bit."

Childress, the man in the middle of all this, shrugs off any suggestion of animosity. He fielded a car for Earnhardt in last year's Busch Series race, and Junior drove it to Victory Lane.

"I can look in his eyes, he's got the same look his father used to have when he came here to run the Daytona 500," Childress said. "We want our cars to win, but if our cars aren't winning, I'm pulling for Dale Jr."