The Winners

Tony Stewart: Smoke is looking pretty dang fast and motivated so far, winning both the Shootout and his Gatorade Duel. If he can dodge trouble he’d have to be the odds-on favorite at this point to finally get the Daytona 500 win that’s been eluding him.

Robert Yates Racing: Regardless of where David Gilliland and Ricky Rudd end up finishing, it’s been a great week for RYR, rebounding nicely from a pretty disastrous 2006 season.

Juan Pablo Montoya: If anything he might have run too well this week, as far as setting expectations very high for his first full season in NEXTEL Cup racing.

Boris Said: He’s well on his way to proving that he definitely belongs in NEXTEL Cup racing, and not just on the road courses, either.

Joe Nemechek and Mike Wallace: Both were on the qualifying bubble and raced well enough in their Duel to make the big show on Sunday.

James Hylton: Yeah, he didn’t make the race on Sunday, but he managed to stay competitive in his Duel on Thursday, despite racing against some drivers one third his age who were piloting much better equipment and cars around the track.

The Losers

Michael Waltrip/Michael Waltrip Racing: I’m not going to spill any more cyber ink detailing the situation here. Let’s hope they run well (but not too well) in the Daytona 500 and we put all this rocket fuel brouhaha behind us as quickly as possible.

Evernham Racing: All their drivers got slammed for rules infractions, with assorted fines, suspensions, and docking of driver points.

Matt Kenseth: Kenseth rounded out the “cheater” crew, getting slapped with fines, suspensions, and losing drivers points.

Jeff Gordon: He’s more an unfortunate loser, as his car inadvertently ended up an inch too short in inspection after winning his Duel on Thursdsay, sending him to the back of the starting grid for Sunday.

Toyota: Not only did they have RocketFuelGate to contend with, but not a lot of oomph from their cars on the track.

Team Red Bull: Not a good debut, with both drivers (Brian Vickers and A.J. Allmendinge) disappointing on the track and not making the race on Sunday.

David Gilliland deserves much credit for his second place finish, not so much for the result itself but the fact that the “rookie” (2007 will be his first full season in NEXTEL Cup racing but he did get some starts last year) was driving smoothly and in control the entire night, despite the field being bunched up for much of the night, racing three and four wide. Gilliland has been a popular dark horse pick as far as a rookie to replicate Denny Hamlin’s success last year, and last night’s performance will likely only fuel such speculation.

The Busch brothers ran well most of the night, as did Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, and Mark Martin. Elliott Sadler showed some vroom as well, until Junior got impatient and got ito the back of him, spinning him out on the last lap. Jeff Gordon and Ryan Newman made early exits after struggling with their cars for most of the night.

Speaking of Junior, umm, I hope you’ve got your mind on racing by the time the Daytona 500 rolls around. Not Junior’s best night, with way too many boneheaded mistakes, including overshooting his pit stall in the only real pit stop of the night. And don’t even start actiing like you’re annoyed with all the questions about the mess at DEI, as those questions are just going to get more frequent and louder, especially if you keep struggling like you did last night.

The Toyotas mostly went out with a whimper, with DJ dropping from the pole like a rock, although Brian Vickers did manage to lead a lap and finish in a quiet 8th.

I’m not a huge fan of Fox’s Cup racing coverage (or anyone’s, really, for that matter), but it went off well enough, for the first event of the season. I thought it was odd that they never bothered to mention what the late caution was for (I didn’t hear it, if they ever did), and I hope they realize that the weird 3-D animated car analysis feature is lame and retire it soon, but there weren’t too many things done or said that made me want to throw something at the tv.