NASCAR NOTEBOOK Daytona roundup

Harvick wins Busch race, Blaney second: Kevin Harvick, who ran away with the 2006 NASCAR Busch Series title, started the season with his 27th Busch victory. Saturday's race was overrun with Buschwhackers -- Nextel Cup regulars moonlighting in the junior series -- and Harvick controlled the last half of the 120-lap event. Starting 31st in the 43-car field, Harvick crossed the finish line about three lengths ahead of runner-up Dave Blaney, who gave Toyota a solid finish in its first Busch event. Blaney, who will drive one of four new Toyotas in the 500, was involved in a multicar crash on the fourth lap but came away without much damage. "We just kind of hung around, hung around," he said. "And right at the very end I snuck into second." Blaney never challenged Harvick. "Kevin was handling a little bit better than I was, and I couldn't get to his back bumper," he said. The 300-mile race was relatively clean, with three caution flags, including two crashes. But the second wreck was a big one, taking out Cup regulars Kasey Kahne, Reed Sorenson, Jamie McMurray and damaging the cars of Cup driver Ward Burton and Busch regular John Andretti, who both finished in the lower half of the field.
Waltrip still seeking answers: Michael Waltrip spent the last week hoping someone would take responsibility for the fuel additive that led to NASCAR sanctions and prompted Toyota to reevaluate its relationship with the two-time Daytona 500 winner. He's still waiting. "We just keep digging, digging, digging," Waltrip said Saturday. "Toyota's going to help us. A lot of people are going to help us. We're going to find out what happened. We have a lot of circumstantial evidence that implicates a couple of folks, but we don't have any proof. So we'll just keep digging until we find out what happened. When I was a kid and I did something wrong I would kind of see the writing on the wall. I'd say, 'Uh oh. Things are getting tight around here.' And you'd fess up. No one's elected to do that." Waltrip added that if anyone is implicated in the cheating scandal, that person likely would be fired. "Somebody didn't get the company philosophy, which is we're going to beat them by working hard and working smart and not by cheating," he said. "I felt like I just had three kids and I was real proud of them, and one of my kids let me down, and you know how bad that hurts. In return, I let a lot of people down, because ultimately I'm responsible."
Bump craft: Tony Stewart said the bump-drafting that concerned him before last year's Daytona 500 won't be a problem this time around. "I think what NASCAR did last year, creating the softer bumper, has slowed it all down," Stewart said. "We're not having the big ramming shots like we were last year, because nobody knows how hard you can hit before you actually do damage to your own car. There's still the pushing, which is fine. Nobody was ever really worried about that. It was the big hits. Because you'd hit somebody, and if you didn't hit them exactly straight, it would really get guys out of shape. And if you were in close quarters, that's what caused big problems." Stewart said last year following the Budweiser Shootout that "we're going to kill somebody. Somebody else is going to die at Daytona or Talladega with what we're doing right here," Stewart said. NASCAR quickly took steps to stop the mayhem, setting up "no zones," in the corners, where drivers were told a bump draft would bring a penalty. Those measures helped, but the big move came later in the season when NASCAR mandated a softer bumper. Stewart said he's OK with bump-drafting -- if it's done right. "If you're with guys you're comfortable with, like Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. ... I know what's coming, and I know what to expect," Stewart said. "If I do it to him, he knows what to expect."
Pit stops: Three-time Daytona 500 champion Dale Jarrett, who will start at the back of the pack in today's race, changed an engine Saturday in his Toyota and was concerned about a recurring fuel-mileage problem. "It's OK," he said. "We're still just trying to work though an issue with [the carburetor] to make sure that we get the best combination of power and fuel mileage that we possibly can, but we've got the car pretty good." ... If the Daytona 500 follows suit with the weekend's other two races, someone will win for the first time at NASCAR's most famous track. Jack Sprague picked up his first victory in Friday's truck race and Kevin Harvick followed in Saturday's Busch race.
Associated Press
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