Stewart dominates Nationwide race

Between the JGR pair, they led 93 of the 120 laps of the season- opening event, showing the current superiority of their package and especially the power advantage that has also been evident in the Sprint Cup series events at Daytona this week.

Stewart started from pole position, led the first 22 laps and surrendered the lead to Busch when his car started to lose balance, but as the race progressed he got the handle of his car back to be able to stay at the front of the pack, trading the lead with his teammate a number of times.

In the closing laps, the field started spreading in several lines as drivers tried to position themselves to have a shot at the win, but still the Gibbs tandem controlled the opposition to the chequered flag.

Stewart surged ahead after Busch lost some of his momentum while fending off Brian Vickers, who also led some laps close to the finish with Toyota power, and Dale Earnhardt Jr who emerged from the pack to battle for victory in the end.

"I felt like no matter what the order was, whether [Busch] was leading and I was behind or vice versa, as long as we could stay together then those guys were going to have a hard time with us," Stewart said.

"I think even if we had another 100 laps to run, they were going to have a hard time as long as Kyle and I were together."

Busch was probably happier than Stewart with the handling of his car through the whole race, but still came up short of winning on his first points' race for Joe Gibbs Racing as his teammate did the right moves to be ahead when it mattered.

"Congratulations to Tony Stewart and his guys, they deserve it," Busch said. "Had a good time out there and had a great race car in the long run - it was the best thing here. That is why we built this car to copy their car so we knew it was better.

"We could run all day long with it, wide open, all the way around the bottom of the race track, top of the race track, anywhere it wanted to go. It's just a shame to come in second with such a great race car."

Dale Earnhardt Jr finished third after running most of the distance in the middle of the pack. As the race approached its end, he was able to move towards the front running the high line with an apparently loose car, but there wasn't much he could do against the Gibbs army.

"We kind of struggled all day running about fifth at the best," Earnhardt Jr said. "It was real slick. You know, Tony and them had fast cars. Kyle had a great car. Worked together really good at the end.

"We were just kind of lucky to be there behind those guys because we hadn't been there all day. I'm just kind of really thankful for that. Get a good finish, get a good start to the season."

The caution flags were out four times during the afternoon, the last one for an incident triggered by Brad Keselowski, who got loose and hit the left-rear corner of Steven Wallace.

Ten cars were involved in the wreck at the exit of turn four, including Kasey Kahne and former Nationwide Series champion Kevin Harvick who had recovered already form being a lap down.

Chip Ganassi Racing's Bryan Clauson was the highest finishing rookie taking an impressive sixth place on his first ever Nationwide Series race at Daytona. Despite dropping back in the order in the first part of the race he quickly moved up to mix it with the Cup regulars.

Meanwhile Dario Franchitti ran a conservative race after starting fourth and kept out of trouble to cross the finish line in twentieth place. He completed some crucial laps which helped him better prepare for his first ever Daytona 500 on Sunday.

"Obviously the cars are different but I think it's so important to finish the races right now and that's what we did," the Scot said. "We didn't take any chances.

"There were a couple of times I could have kept my foot in the thing and could have gone three-wide but as I say I was being just a little bit cautious today. Hopefully we can continue that into tomorrow."

The Nationwide Series field will meet again next week at California Speedway.

Pos  Driver                 Make       Laps
 1.  Tony Stewart           Toyota      120
 2.  Kyle Busch             Toyota      120
 3.  Dale Earnhardt Jr      Chevrolet   120
 4.  Brian Vickers          Toyota      120
 5.  Matt Kenseth           Ford        120
 6.  Bryan Clauson          Dodge       120
 7.  Greg Biffle            Ford        120
 8.  Denny Hamlin           Toyota      120
 9.  David Ragan            Ford        120
10.  Carl Edwards           Ford        120
11.  Martin Truex Jr        Chevrolet   120
12.  Kelly Bires            Ford        120
13.  Johnny Sauter          Chevrolet   120
14.  David Reutimann        Toyota      120
15.  Bobby Labonte          Chevrolet   120
16.  Brad Keselowski        Chevrolet   120
17.  Mike Bliss             Dodge       120
18.  Scott Wimmer           Chevrolet   120
19.  Jason Leffler          Toyota      120
20.  Dario Franchitti       Dodge       120
21.  Kevin Harvick          Chevrolet   120
22.  Bobby Hamilton Jr      Ford        120
23.  Cale Gale              Chevrolet   120
24.  Mike Wallace           Toyota      120
25.  Clint Bowyer           Chevrolet   119
26.  Brad Coleman           Ford        119
27.  Michael McDowell       Toyota      119
28.  Brad Baker             Ford        119
29.  Willie Allen           Dodge       119
30.  Kirk Shelmerdine       Chevrolet   119
31.  Robert Richardson, II  Chevrolet   118
32.  Dwayne Leik            Chevrolet   118
33.  DJ Kennington          Dodge       117
34.  Eric McClure           Chevrolet   116
35.  Kasey Kahne            Dodge       111
36.  Jason Keller           Chevrolet   110
37.  Steve Wallace          Chevrolet   110
38.  Stanton Barrett        Chevrolet   108
39.  Marcos Ambrose         Ford        103
40.  David Gilliland        Ford         53
41.  Mark Green             Chevrolet    53
42.  David Stremme          Chevrolet    17
43.  Steve Grissom          Chevrolet     3