DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- In the mid-1980s Bill Elliott handled everyone on NASCAR's superspeedways while these days, beating the other go-or-go-home cars is the only concern for Elliott and his Wood Brothers Racing team.

But on Saturday as practice for the 51st Daytona 500 opened at Daytona International Speedway, Elliott recalled memories of days of yore when he posted the fastest practice speed of 57 entries, in fact, leading both sessions.

Elliott's No. 21 Ford's best lap in the two practices was in 47.885 seconds, an average speed of 187.950 mph -- posted on his only run in the afternoon session. For Elliott and his team, it was only a one-day victory in Speedweeks' 10-day ordeal. The payoff -- short-term as it might be -- may come in Sunday afternoon's pole qualifying session for the Great American Race.

Elliott, who holds Daytona's qualifying record of 210.364 mph set in 1987, failed to make the last two Daytona 500s with versions of the current qualifying procedure in place.

"Well, we thought we were [off to a good start] last year, too," Elliott said. "You can't tell about this business. Right now, we just need to beat the go-or-go-homers. That's where we need to concentrate and let the rest of it fall where it may. We've got to not make any mistakes and see what [Sunday] brings."

The current qualifying system locks the top 35 in the previous year's owners' points into the race. That leaves only a handful of openings for Elliott and the other 21 drivers that must qualify their cars into the show based on speed or finishing position in the Gatorade Duel 150 qualifying races. The front row will be decided in pole qualifying. No more than two positions from each of the Duel races will be available for go-or-go-home drivers. Then either the three or four fastest qualifying speeds of otherwise unqualified cars will make the field, depending on whether or not a past champion's provisional is used.

Elliott, the 1988 Cup champion, has one of those provisionals but he's third in line behind Tony Stewart (2005) and Terry Labonte (1996) in the pecking order that gives priority to the most recent champion.

So Elliott's directly competing with 21 other go-or-go-homers. After Saturday's three-and-a-half hours of practice, Elliott was almost three-tenths of a second ahead of the next-best go-or-go-home car. Stewart was 10th on the afternoon speed chart. (Continued)