TEAM REPORTS (DAYTONA, FLA.) - Gordon Finishes 14th, Starts 26th in Sunday's Daytona 500

Robby Gordon smiled as he climbed from the No. 7 Jim Beam Dodge seconds after finishing 14th Thursday in the second of NASCAR’s two 150-mile qualifying races for the 50th running of Sunday’s Daytona 500 .

“All in all that was pretty uneventful for us,” said Gordon who will start 26th of the 43 cars that made the season-opening race.” “It was pretty exciting out there. But our main goal was to keep the car in one piece and learn all we could for the Daytona 500.”

He admitted the Robby Gordon Motorsports team is waiting to show its hand on Sunday.

“We were pretty conservative. We stayed at the back in the beginning. Our plan was just to ride around until lap 50 then go,” said Gordon who started the race in 17th place.

When the green flag dropped Gordon stayed at the back of the 26-car field. In the earlier race several teams experienced tire problems and Gordon’s team took every precaution to avoid wrecking the primary car in a race that determined only the starting order for Sunday’s race.

He dropped to 26th by lap 5 while others waged a frantic battle throughout the field.

Gordon told his team in the early going to expect trouble and on lap 16 it came just as he predicted. Jacques Villeneuve, Stanton Barrett, Dario Franchitti and Jamie McMurray ended their day in a multicar accident.

Gordon moved to 16th after the pit stop on lap 18, but he wasn’t ready to make his move yet.

“I’m not ready to go yet,” Gordon said over the radio.

A few laps later NASCAR stopped the race after Dave Blaney’s engine oiled the track and cleanup took longer than expected.

Gordon came to the pits to top off his fuel and made a track bar adjusted before the 60-lap race restarted at the half-way mark.

Gordon once again began his climb up through the field helping fellow Dodge Patrick Carpentier attempt to make the race. But the Canadian’s car bounced off the wall a few times in the closing laps and eventually slammed the wall with just three laps remaining ending his bid to start in the Daytona 500.

“We really wanted to help Patrick but I could tell how hard he was fighting his car. He did a good job hanging on as long as he did. He’s a driver.”

The caution brought out by Carpentier bunched the field again for the restart with just three laps remaining. Gordon restarted 17th and moved to 14th before the checkered flag fell.

“There just wasn’t enough time there at the end to get up there and pass some cars,” said Gordon who is optimistic about Sunday’s race.

“We were better than we showed today. We’ll take what we learned this afternoon and apply to our setup for Sunday and we’ll be ready to go.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the first race while Denny Hamlin won the second race.