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.

Even that wasn't enough to calm either Elliott or his team co-owner, Len Wood.

"There's nothing much a driver can do," Elliott said of his prospects. "But I think Len and Eddie [Wood] learned a lot last year. That's where David [Hyder, crew chief] and all the guys have done a good job on the details with this car, so we'll just have to wait and see."

Len Wood agreed.

"I felt nearly this good a year ago standing here at this time, but we managed to mess it up for qualifying," Wood said. "We burned a gear up and have tried to go over it a number of times. We've talked about not beating ourselves this year because last year we beat ourselves. I'm not saying we would have got in, but we would have been really close.

"This year we've got a really good shot at it. We've worked hard all winter and it kind of goes back to our plan with Ford and [director of Ford Racing] Brian Wolfe of preparing for every race we're going to and prepare properly. We're not going to do things we can't do."

For better or worse, that means Elliott's scenario won't change much this season as, barring an extraordinary set of circumstances, the Wood Brothers won't deviate from the team's plan to run only 12 races on superspeedways and 1.5-mile intermediate ovals.

Elliott, whose last Daytona pole came for the 2001 Daytona 500 in Dodge's return to the Cup level, has run partial schedules for the past five years, recognizes where he's at.

"I think we were getting better last fall and I think that was overshadowed," Elliott said of the sponsorship-driven, offseason decision to cut the team's schedule. "The Chase and everything else overshadows what you do. The problem with this whole sport is there is a select few that gets all the media and when you're not in [the garage] every week, it's tough to find your place at the end of the day.

Wood said the focus is learning from last year.

"We've got two cars that are nearly equal and it was a toss-up on which one we brought," he said. "This was actually a car we ran last year, but it's completely changed since then. Everything but the cage from last year has been changed.

"Doug Yates has got us a really good engine. We did driveline testing, wind tunnel testing, seven-post -- a lot of stuff with Ford's help. Like I said, the main thing is not beating ourselves. Hopefully, we can sit it on the front row. If not, we need to be in the top-three fastest of the ones that need to get in."

For Wood, who suffered through his family team missing only its third 500 in 50 years last season, said a good speed was more important than the front row.

"That would be nice, but I don't want to talk about that, yet," Wood said. "If we just do what we're supposed to and not beat ourselves, we should be fine."