Daytona 500 notebook: JGR teammates can't seal the deal

DAYTONA BEACH: The day's most dominant driver cost 2 cars a shot at victory.

Kyle Busch had the fastest car all day long, and he was poised to lead the Toyota charge to victory lane in the Daytona 500 when he lined up second on a restart with 3 laps remaining behind Jeff Burton. But Busch got too good of a restart and ended up diving below the yellow out-of-bounds line at the bottom of the race track entering the first turn.

NASCAR rules dictate that any driver making a pass in below the yellow line must slow enough to give back any positions he gained -- and when Busch let Burton back by, he lost all momentum and any chance at a victory for either himself or Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Tony Stewart.

"Those guys had such a head of steam," Busch said of Penske Racing teammates Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch, who posted a 1-2 finish. "They got ahead of me on that restart. They lagged back and then got a big push. In the NASCAR rulebook, that's not right, but they let it go."

Stewart kept waiting for a push to come from Kyle, but it never materialized. He later admitted he had no idea his teammate had to give back positions he took by crossing below the yellow line.

"Kyle finally got to me off turn 4, but by that time we were both way too far behind to make a charge," Stewart said. "We needed another lap. If we could have got another lap, the outcome might have been different."

Kyle Busch led a race-high 86 laps.

"Just frustrating to come home fourth, but that's part of the Daytona 500, when you run as good as we had all day long," Busch said. "Those guys couldn't keep up with us, but there was all those cautions at the end that propelled (Newman and Kurt Busch) forward enough in order to get them ahead."

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The Hendrick Motorsports domination trumpeted in newspaper headlines all week never materialized on Sunday.

3-time Daytona 500 champion Jeff Gordon finished 39th after falling out with suspension failure, 2-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson finished 27th after a spin on lap 177 and Casey Mears slapped the turn 1 fence while racing with the leaders just five laps from the checkered flag.

Even newest Hendrick teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., thought all week to be one of the favorites to win the 500, led just 12 laps en route to a 9th-place run.

"We obviously didn't have enough car there most of the day," Earnhardt said. "I made a lot of poor choice where to take my runs and what to do with them."

"I hope my teammates get up there and make something happen against those Toyotas, because I don't see anyone who had anything for them," Gordon said after falling out of the race with a broken control arm. "The suspension is just so tough on these cars with these bumps here. You don't know what's taking all the load. You keep fixing one thing and it just keeps creating another issue. It's unfortunate."

Johnson looped it after contact with Sam Hornish Jr. in turn 2, but he had slipped all the way back as far as 30th in the early going, fearing he'd have to pit out of sequence at one point because the car was handling so poorly.

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The final Daytona 500 for 3-time race-winner and former Cup Series champion Dale Jarrett ended with a 16th place finish.

"After I got past the start-finish line under the white flag and nobody wrecked, I thought about that," Jarrett said of his final lap of competiton on the famed 2.5-mile oval, the birthplace of NASCAR racing. "I was thinking that that was my last time I would make a lap here. I had time to cool down there and think about it. This has been a very special place for me."

But Jarrett said it really hasn't sunk in that he won't race in the Daytona 500 again.

"That will happen later, as soon as I get home and think about it," he said. "Then by that time, it will be time to go to California. It is never ending."

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Newman had only finished in the top-10 twice in 12 previous Cup starts at Daytona, with a career-best finish of 3rd in the 2006 Daytona 500. One of those 12 races resulted in a spectacular tumble down the frontstretch in this race in 2003. ... 6 of the top 8 finishers in the 500 were Dodges. ... Hornish, an IRL and Indianapolis 500 champion, was the top-finishing rookie in 15th.