Gilliland, others slap wall in Duels practice

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Daytona 500 pole-sitter David Gilliland escaped a wall-banging incident in the opening moments of Wednesday's first practice for Thursday's Gatorade Duel qualifying races at Daytona International Speedway.

It was one of several incidents that also involved the cars of Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards and Paul Menard at least -- but no cars were seriously damaged.

The most critical issues turned out to be a hole ground in the oil pan of Robby Gordon's No. 7 Ford which. When NASCAR informed him he could not replace the engine, it forced the team to remove the engine, replace the pan and reinstall the engine -- thus, he did not run in the second practice.

And NASCAR cleared Michael Waltrip Racing's back-up No. 55 Toyota to participate in the opening practice, but it never left the garage for either session.

NASCAR seized the owner/driver's primary car following Sunday's Bud Pole Qualifying session for the Daytona 500, after it previously had taken the car's original intake manifold when inspectors found a "substance" inside the manifold.

"He's got a back-up car and he's working on it right now getting it ready to practice," NASCAR president Mike Helton said after leaving a 15-minute meeting in Waltrip's hauler with NASCAR chairman Brian France, Waltrip and vice president/general manager Ty Norris.

Waltrip's team was later slapped with NASCAR's biggest fine to date, with two indefinite suspensions, 100 owner points and 100 driver points, in addition to monetary fines.

On the track, less than two hours after team owner Jack Roush said he probably wouldn't appeal NASCAR sanctions -- including a four-race suspension of crew chief Robbie Reiser -- against his No. 17 Ford Fusion team, driver Matt Kenseth posted the fastest time in the opening 55-minute practice, 47.801-second, 188.281 mph lap.

That didn't surprise interim crew chief Chip Bolen, the team engineer whom Roush named Tuesday to replace Reiser, Kenseth's crew chief for 255 of his 256 career starts.

"What Robbie has put together here is a machine that really runs well, as long as we all do our jobs," Bolen said of the seemingly seamless transition. "As long as we do, everything seems to take care of itself, so Matt's pretty happy with the car and we're trying to make sure the tire wear and fuel mileage and all that stuff is taken care of."

Second-year driver Reed Sorenson was second-fastest behind Kenseth but was wide-eyed after experiencing his first-pack practice of Speedweeks.

"It's very slick out there," Sorenson said. "I saw a lot of cars in front of me and they were all over the place [and] I'm sure mine looked the same way [because] the tires are really hard.

"I think everybody who ran the Shootout knew it was going to be slick. Now everybody in the garage knows how slick it is. It's going to be interesting.

"I think the wind made 'em slide even more, so maybe if the wind dies down a little it will change things, but right now it's slick everywhere."

At least three drivers who ran Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout found out about the slippery conditions first-hand, most notably Gilliland. After running only four laps in practice, his No. 38 Ford slapped the outside wall while trailing Juan Montoya and outside of Johnny Sauter.

"It's a lot windier than it's been since I've been here, and it just got a little bit tight coming off of [Turn] 2, there, when I got caught up in some dirty air," Gilliland said. "We just scratched up the right side a little bit, but it's not too bad and Todd [Parrott, crew chief] isn't worried -- and he knows what he needs to win here."

Gilliland, who is competing in his first Speedweeks program, said the damage, which included having his team replace several interior "crush panels" as well as rolling the outer bodywork to smoothen it, might make the team re-think its strategy for Thursday's 150-miler.

"We just won't take any extra chances or put ourselves in a position to get in trouble -- we're going to start up front and try to stay up front, and we think we have a car fast enough to do that," Gilliland said. "The advantage we feel like we have is that we don't feel like we have to put ourselves in a bad position.

"There are a lot of guys who have to race their way in [to the Daytona 500] and they're going to be taking chances, because it's do or die for them -- but it's not for us so like I said, we're just looking forward to a good, solid finish."

Hamlin was another driver who got caught-out by the wind in the west end of the track.

"We just got a little bit loose in [Turns] 1 and 2 and I think Carl was right on our bumper," Hamlin said. "He got into the back of us going into 2 and it kind of picked up a push and got into the wall.

"The wind was definitely real bad down there and it was a lot different from how it is off of [Turn] 4, so you could really tell the difference there, but the conditions probably won't be like that in the 150s."

Hamlin said his car, too, had "nothing seriously wrong with it -- just body stuff. They checked it and everything turned out fine, so I'm pretty confident in what we have."

The right-rear corner of Menard's No. 15 Chevrolet had a scuff on it that appeared to be caused by contact with a wall.