Slower isn't safer at 'Dega, warns Elliott

"Maybe I was younger and dumber then," Elliott said. "I just didn't think about it. That was a different time, a different era. Cars were light years apart. Back then, we were running faster, but it seemed safer. I never had the thoughts in my mind like I do today. It's a different atmosphere. If you take 43 cars and put them together for 500 miles, if somebody makes a mistake, it can cause a problem. You can't expect us to run that long without something happening.

"From our standpoint, it has gotten more difficult. If you go to Atlanta, Texas and Darlington and start 43rd, you have an opportunity to race and pass cars from the front. Here, how you race and who you help and how you get cut off is going to dictate your day and I'm not used to that kind of racing."

Elliott believes if the speeds had been left unchecked since 1987, the cars would be running well over 220 miles per hour today. He believes that extra speed would allow the cars to spread out, rather than run in tight packs that have created dangerous racing situations recently.

"You would probably be running in the 220s, easy," Elliott said. "It would be speeds that are pretty incredible. It's like you are on cruise control. This place was built for greater speeds than Daytona. It's two totally different worlds. They want a race at Daytona like Talladega and it's not going to happen.

"We came in here and NASCAR announced a rules change for the Fords and the Dodge and that made my guys go back and bust their butts. It pays when you come back and qualify. What separated us at Daytona is not all of the cars could run wide open all day long. But here, your great-grandmother could run here wide open."

When Dale Earnhardt was killed on the last lap of the Daytona 500 on February 18, a spectre of gloom and doom hovered over the sport. This is NASCAR's first restrictor-plate race since Earnhardt's death and there is a high level of tension in the garage area.

"We know there is risk in everything we do, we realise that no matter what track we go to," Elliott said. "What has happened to the last four drivers in the last year, that is reality and that is reality to everyone. To come here just puts you in that box. The first 100 laps, you can give that guy that six inches, but that won't be there in the last 10 laps.

"At Daytona, we lost 20 cars on the back straightaway and we still had 23 cars at the end of that race. I don't have the answers. You come in and you hope and pray you get in the right position and walk out of here at the end of the day."