Push from Waltrip helps Jarrett make his final 500 (cont'd)

The assist from Waltrip was part of the plan. "That's one of the things we talked about when it came time," Jarrett said. "He has a starting spot. He's going to start second regardless. If my car ran a lot better when I had somebody behind pushing, Michael knew how to do that. That helped a lot."

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Could Jarrett have made the 500 without Waltrip's help? Although he never complained about his car over the radio -- in fact, he stressed to his crew several times that everything was fine -- his advance through the field didn't begin in earnest until his car owner dropped back to push. Still, he maintained that he had enough car to do it on his own if needed.

"It made my job easier knowing that I had someone there at my back. But no, my car was good enough to drive up there and do what I needed to do. I told the guys early on when they asked about my car, I knew my car was really good. I was just free enough that I knew that I shouldn't be hurt in the right-front tire, and that I could ride around the top when I needed to do that," Jarrett said.

"[Waltrip] got lost there a couple of times, and I was still OK. But no, my car was good enough do to what I needed to do. Kind of like an insurance policy, basically, and we all have that. So it was nice to have that there."

Waltrip echoed that sentiment. "Dale just had an awesome car. He did a great job. He could have made it without us, but there was no sense in taking that chance," he said.

"We wanted to do all we could. It's part of the rules. You can go out and help your teammates, and that's what we did."

Reutimann, who drives MWR's No. 00 car, knew the game plan going in. "Trust me, all the guys at Michael Waltrip Racing weren't going to not let me know what we were supposed to be doing at any given time," he said. "We knew the 44 car needed to finish ahead of the 00. It's irrelevant where you start, to me, at this point, as long as we get three cars in the field. That's what our goal was."

But it was far from guaranteed. Before the race, Jarrett -- whose career is in many ways defined by his trio of Daytona 500 victories -- talked about how important it was to make the race in his final attempt. Last season, Waltrip was the one who had to sweat out making the Daytona 500 in the 150s. Thursday it was Jarrett's turn, and the end result was a 20th-place starting position in Sunday's main event.

"It is very gratifying, personally," he said. "...Personally, hey, when it comes time to get this done, I enjoy the challenge. I feel very good about what we were able to accomplish."