Elliott ready to blood Dodge

The 10 cars entered for the 2001 Winston Cup proved off the pace in Daytona testing last month, but in Friday's opening practice for next weekend's stock car showpiece, Stacy Compton was second and fourth fastest in the two sessions - just 0.033s off Robby Gordon's pace-setting 182.160mph lap in a Morgan-McClure Chevrolet Monte Carlo yesterday.

With that unexpected boost for the marque, which has had just 500 days to develop its programme from scratch under ace crew chief Ray Evernham, veteran Elliott now gets the chance to put the new car through its paces in the all-important draft in Sunday's non-points Shootout.

Starting positions for the 70-lap, 175-mile race were drawn by lots. 'Awesome Bill from Dawsonville' starts 13th in the 18-car field of 2000 pole-winners and former Shootout winners.

Pole man for the race, which includes a mandatory green flag pit stop is Ken Schrader (Pontiac), with Dale Earnhardt (Chevrolet) second and Dale Jarrett (Ford) and Mark Martin (Ford) completing the top four.

Today (Saturday) will see the front row for the Daytona 500 'locked-in'. A single-car qualifying session will be used to determine the first two grid slots, with all other slots in the 43-car field determined by next Thursday's twin 125-mile qualifying races (spots 3 to 30), qualifying speeds (31 to 36) and provisionals (37 to 43).

Dodge has 10 cars entered for the Daytona 500, with Ray Evernham's two-car team joined by Petty Enterprises (three cars), Bill Davis Racing (two cars), Chip Ganassi Racing (two cars) and Melling Motorsports (one car).