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.

Without drafting help, Gilliland watched the field slowly disappear in his windshield -- as the leaders began to appear in his rear-view mirror. Even though his car was as good as new, Gilliland was losing as much as a half-second a lap and desperately needed a caution to regain track position.

It never came.

Caught by leader Kurt Busch on Lap 132, Gilliland went down a lap. However, his fortunes were about to change.

He dodged the Lap 154 wreck that eliminated Busch and Stewart and earned the free pass, getting back on the lead lap at the tail end of the field. That was exactly what his car needed, and at the restart, Gilliland quickly moved from 35th into the top 25.

Then it was just a matter of missing the melees that followed. He avoided getting caught up in the aftermath of the Jimmie Johnson crash on Lap 175 and eight laps later, the one set off by Carl Edwards.

On the Lap 190 restart, Gilliland was 12th. Within four laps, he was eighth. Three laps later, he was fourth and closing ground on leader Mark Martin when Jamie McMurray, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Ricky Rudd commenced to wrecking on the backstretch, setting up the two-lap dash for the cash.

Lined up behind Martin, Kyle Busch and Greg Biffle, Gilliland thought he had a chance until Harvick came flying up the outside on the backstretch.

"I was trying to block the inside and the outside and Harvick got a run on me there," Gilliland said. "I tried to go up, but it was too late, and then the guys started wrecking in front of me, so stuff happens.

"It's Daytona and a green-white-checkered finish."