RICHMOND, Va. -- Like the fine wines in his Carolina vineyard, Richard Childress has aged well.

A prominent team owner in NASCAR, the man has transcended three decades and has found success in all of them; namely at the sports' most famed track, the Daytona International Speedway.

Beginning with the homespun personality of Dale Earnhardt in the decadent decade of the '80s to the at-times high strung personality of Kevin Harvick, member of Generation X, Childress is in a unique position to have steered both wheelmen to Daytona 500 victories.

Both victories hold special meaning to Childress, but it was the one in 1998, one that eluded him after 20 attempts, that takes him back to a special place.

"To watch the look and hear Dale's voice. Going into that day, we knew we had a really good shot like so many other times and fortune just smiled on us that day," he said. "To see Dale's career with the Daytona 500 by it was very special and to be part of it was very special."

Next season will be another special moment in time when Childress and dozens of other team owners compete for and celebrate the 50th running of the Daytona 500, the Great American Race. To be a team owner with this accolade is a great achievement, to have multiple wins is grand.

At Richmond International Raceway on Friday, a select group of Daytona 500-winning team owners gathered for a unique reunion. Combined, the men -- Childress, Richard Petty, Leonard Wood and Larry McClure -- have won nearly one-third of the first 49 of what is arguably the most coveted race in all of motorsports.

For Richard Childress Racing, the moment solidified a car owner and driver partnership; but for Childress himself, it strengthened a longtime friendship, something he said really doesn't exist today.

In NASCAR's new groove, Childress said drivers are too busy to toss a line or partake in old-fashioned male bonding.

"Demands on the drivers today are a lot more than what it was back then," he said. "It's harder as an owner today to get close to your drivers as it was back then, mostly because the sport has changed with all of our time."

Childress and Earnhardt worked together for 20 years and had a lot in common.

"We spent a lot of time together, but Kevin, he's got a lot of different things going on," he said. "But it's funny because I see a lot of similarities in Kevin and Dale."

As things change, some will always remain the same and that's the feeling of the 500 victory which sets the tone for the entire season.

"If you win Daytona you're a winner for the rest of the year whether you show up or not," said Richard Petty, he a seven-time winner as an owner/driver.

Petty, like Childress, grew up in the sport chasing Daytona 500 victories.

"As NASCAR was growing up, Richard Petty was growing up," he said.

And the sport will have yet another growth spurt next season with the Car of Tomorrow on the track.

Petty acknowledges the change but really feels it will be irrelevant.

"We went down there 1959, '60, '70, '80 or whatever. Every year we had a different car. We didn't go to a wind tunnel. We didn't test. We just took the cotton-picking thing down there, put it on the racetrack and went out and ran with what we had," he said.

Those were the days, said Leonard Wood, whose legendary Wood Brothers team won Daytona 500s with such drivers as Cale Yarborough, A.J. Foyt and David Pearson. But none were as memorable as Tiny Lund's upset in 1963.

"The first one that we won is probably one of the most exciting ones," said Wood, recalling how Lund came to the rescue after Marvin Panch was involved in a fiery accident during a sports-car test.

"Tiny Lund [and a few others] was coming through the tunnel and saw this thing burning upside down. They picked the car up and dragged Marvin out. Of course Tiny gets in and wins the race. It's sort of a Cinderella story. It was very exciting and emotional at the same time."

And no matter the decade or the driver or the owner, emotional and exciting will always be two timeless words to describe the Daytona 500.