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.

Robert Yates has to be doing backflips of joy (carefully and gingerly, of course) after David Gilliland grabbed the pole for the Daytona 500, with Ricky Rudd right behind him. It’s not a shock to see Gilliland up there after his performance in the Bud Shootout on Saturday but I can’t imagine too many people out there picked Ricky Rudd to be on the front row with him. Rudd will have plenty of people pulling for him, though, as he’s definitely the feel-good story of the young 2007 season, roaring back after being out of racing entirely last year.

Joining the happy RYR drivers in the highlight circle were Boris Said, Sterling Marlin, and Johnny Sauter, all of whom weren’t guaranteed a spot in the race but locked down their entries based on qualifying results.

On the flip side of the happy coin, Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne both failed inspections, due to illegal holes drilled in various locations of their cars, ostensibly to improve aerodynamics. (Michael Waltrip had an engine manifold confiscated because of unidentified substances on it but was allowed to continue qualifying with a clean replacement manifold, although his car was then impounded after he qualified 24th.)

It’ll be interesting to see what action NASCAR takes against Kenseth and Kahne, as on the surface it seems pretty similar to Jimmie Johnson getting busted last year, when crew chief Chad Knaus took the fall and was suspended for 4 races. The fact that Jimmie went on to win the Daytona 500 didn’t exactly help out NASCAR much, as it made the slap on the wrist of suspending Knaus for 4 races look like exactly what it was, a meaningless slap on the wrist.

Unlike other sports, NASCAR is in a much tougher spot when it comes to doling out penalties, as major sponsors simply won’t stand for drivers to get suspended, especially for huge races such as the Daytona 500. Everyone knows that teams push the envelope as far as possible, as far as what they do to squeeze extra performance out of the cars, but that inevitable leads to a difficult spot when something is unearthed and cars get impounded, as NASCAR then has to publicly appear tough on “cheaters” without monkeying with their bread and butter, which is big-name drivers representing big-name sponsors, going around in circles for every single race.

The Toyota pack wasn’t exactly overwhelming in their debut in NEXTEL Cup racing, with David Reutimann finishing the highest at 14th. While Dale Jarrett and Dave Blaney are guaranteed spots, the other six Toyota drivers have to try to race their way in during the Duels on Thursday.