Pit Move: Daytona 500

A former high school golfing teammate of Tiger Woods, David Gilliland knows a little bit about scrambling to make par. He left himself with an almost unplayable lie during Sunday's Daytona 500 and needed every club in the bag to reach the flag.

Going from first to last at one point after a pit-road collision, Gilliland still put himself in position to win the race during the green-white-checkered finish. And if not for getting on two wheels during the last-turn crash, he most certainly would have been among the top-five finishers.

Instead, Gilliland had to settle for eighth -- a pretty impressive day, all things considered.

"I thought we had it," Gilliland said. "Guys started wrecking and it kind of came away and we were going through the middle.

"I was in front of [eventual winner Kevin] Harvick at the time and it just closed in on me at the end, but an eighth-place finish with all we went through [Sunday], we'll take it."

"All we went through" was an understatement of the highest order.

The pole-sitter -- and Daytona 500 rookie -- led the first 18 laps and was solidly in the top five from the drop of the green flag when the caution came out for an accident on Lap 80.

Gilliland, pitting two spaces behind leader Tony Stewart and four behind Robby Gordon, stopped for what looked like routine service with the rest of the leaders. However, as the 30-year-old native of Riverside, Calif., pulled out, he clipped the left side of Gordon's car, which was heading for its stall.

"We had a great car," Gilliland said. "We had a little incident on pit road, but we never gave up and kept on fighting."

The incident damaged the valance on Gilliland's car while Gordon ended up backwards in the middle of pit road. Stewart -- an innocent bystander sitting just inches away while everything was going on -- was able to emerge unscathed but was nabbed for speeding on pit road.

Stewart and Gilliland came back to the pits on the following lap -- Stewart to top off his tank and serve the penalty while Gilliland's crew worked to repair the damage to the No. 38 Ford. Stewart was able to rejoin the back of the pack on the restart, but Gilliland was left nearly half a lap behind when the green flew again on Lap 83. (Continued)