Elliott Sadler, who nearly lost his ride in the offseason, nearly won NASCAR's biggest race for the newly created Richard Petty Motorsports team, losing the lead to winner Matt Kenseth in the final laps as the rain came down.
Although the 51st Daytona 500 was missing a Petty for the first time since 1965, three of the four drivers racing for RPM, formed in December when Petty Enterprises and Gillett Evernham Motorsports merged, finished among the top nine.
Sunday, AJ Allmendinger was the driver with the top finish -- a career-high third -- after Sadler faded to fifth. Reed Sorenson, driving Petty's famed No. 43, finished ninth.
"I'm very proud of the boys," Petty said. "They ran hard -- and smart -- all day long. This is one heck of a way to start the season. This is how we want Richard Petty Motorsports to start. I think George (Gillett) and I have something good here. This is just the beginning, and we're excited for the next couple of races. Hopefully, this isn't the last time that you see those boys at the front of the pack working together like that."
It was a remarkable performance for a team that few expected to be among the top contenders.
More important, it was a strong performance from a group of unlikely teammates. During the offseason, GEM planned to replace Sadler with Allmendinger, but Sadler filed an injunction to stop the move. When GEM and Petty Enterprises merged, Sadler and Allmendinger, who only has funding to race the first eight events, ended up teammates.
Although disappointed by how he lost the race, Sadler said he was proud of the team's performance, particularly when they were running 1-2-3 late in the race.
"It was cool running up front," Sadler said. "It was great having Reed and AJ behind me pushing. It would have been cool to finish like that, but (it) just wasn't meant to be. Very hard to swallow. Very emotional. But we'll get 'em next week."
Only Kasey Kahne, had a bad day, finishing 29th after getting involved in one of several multicar crashes in the race.
Allmendinger said the new team's fast start was definitely "a big deal", especially knowing how little most people expected from the merger of two struggling teams.
"I wish it would have rained a little bit earlier so we could have had a Cinderella story, had Elliott and all of us in the top five," the former open-wheel racing star said. "I look forward to going to California (next week) and just carrying this on. This team is going to surprise a lot of people before we're done."
And it never hurts to have a Petty in your corner.
"You've got the King walking around saying hi to everybody, making sure everybody's good," he said. "It's a lot of fun at the racetrack right now."
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