Earnhardt Jr tops day 2 at Daytona

Dale Earnhardt Jr topped the timing sheets in his No. 8 Bud DEI Chevrolet, with a lap of 48.230 seconds, at a speed of 186.606 mph, set during the afternoon drafting session, which was dominated by the Chevrolets.

Earnhardt Jr was closely followed by the No. 25 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet of former Ganassi driver Casey Mears, and Monday's pacesetter Tony Raines in his No. 96 DLP Chevrolet.

The Toyotas, which showed early promise on Monday, fell down in the time sheets. Dale Jarrett, driving the No. 44 UPS car, was the fastest among the Camrys, finishing the day in 15th place.

The other two Toyota teams testing finished well down the order, as they struggled to find enough speed in the draft. The slowest of the three was the No. 83 Red Bull car driven by former Hendrick driver Brian Vickers.

"We just want to come down here and have a good test," said Vickers, whose best lap was nearly a second off the pace, at 182.994 mph.

"It's our first time testing - not only as a group of people but the cars as well. All of it's a learning process for us.

"We've just got to have a good smooth test, nothing go wrong, get laps on the car, try stuff and learn to communicate."

Most Dodge teams tested with the new nose that will feature on the Charger this year. Evernham's Kasey Kahne was among those running it on his car since the opening day of practice.

"The car we have here, the one we're starting the season with, has a new nose which will be a little bit different," Kahne said.

"We've been doing a lot of testing with it. We're hoping it helps us run better into traffic at some tracks."

Testing resumes tomorrow at Daytona.

Testing speeds from Tuesday's afternoon session at Daytona:

Pos  Driver             Make        Speed (mph)
 1.  Dale Earnhardt Jr  Chevrolet   186.606
 2.  Casey Mears        Chevrolet   186.440
 3.  Tony Raines        Chevrolet   186.428
 4.  Reed Sorenson      Dodge       186.416
 5.  Bill Elliott       Dodge       186.397
 6.  Ricky Rudd         Ford        186.312
 7.  Scott Riggs        Dodge       186.278
 8.  Jamie McMurray     Ford        186.231
 9.  Greg Biffle        Ford        185.947
10.  Kasey Kahne        Dodge       185.709
11.  Sterling Marlin    Chevrolet   185.162
12.  Dale Jarrett       Toyota      184.813
13.  Bobby Labonte      Dodge       184.759
14.  Mike McLaughlin    Chevrolet   184.649
15.  Jimmie Johnson     Chevrolet   184.570
16.  Jeff Green         Chevrolet   184.339
17.  Joe Nemechek       Chevrolet   184.320
18.  Boris Said         Ford        183.974
19.  Dave Blaney        Toyota      183.902
20.  Kevin Harvick      Chevrolet   183.895
21.  Martin Truex Jr    Chevrolet   183.658
22.  Brian Vickers      Toyota      182.994
23.  Eric McClure       Chevrolet   182.901
24.  Scott Wimmer       Chevrolet   182.711
25.  PJ Jones           Ford        182.700
26.  Kirk Shelmerdine   Chevrolet   182.667