But the day belonged to Yates, who won the Daytona 500 pole for the fifth time in his career. Davey Allison won the first in 1992, then Jarrett grabbed it in 1995, 2000 and 2005.

Although the pole means very little in terms of the actual race, it puts Yates’ team in the spotlight for the entire week leading up to the event — sweet redemption considering many wondered if it would even survive a disastrous 2006.

First Jarrett bolted for Waltrip’s new Toyota team, and sponsor UPS followed. Then Elliott Sadler asked out of his contract forcing Yates to essentially start from scratch in his 40th year of racing.

It had Yates so stressed out, the owner was convinced he was dying and turned to prescription medication to alleviate the stress.

“Robert, sitting there watching him ... it was pretty sad to see how low the team had gotten,” Rudd said.

And now?

“Robert has got a little bit of a bounce in his step again because he has a program that is working, it is clicking,” Rudd said.

Indeed it is, and it all began when Yates gambled on signing Gilliland, a West Coast racer who rocketed onto the NASCAR radar by winning a Busch race last June in an underfunded, part-time team.

It had car owners clamoring to sign the 30-year-old unknown, and Gilliland chose the struggling Yates team and couldn’t have been more sure of his decision after Sunday.

“After some of the stuff that was said about the Yates organization last year, I’m real proud to come out real strong,” Gilliland said. “Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.”

Yates still needed a sponsor to keep his flagship No. 88 afloat, and he got it in December when Snickers signed onto the car. Then he coaxed Rudd to end his one-year sabbatical from racing.

“I would not have come back to work if I did not think this team was solid enough to win some races,” Rudd said.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

Waltrip, a two-time Daytona 500 winner, was 25th in qualifying. But NASCAR later impounded his Camry for further inspection.

Waltrip insisted the manifold was legal.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he said. “We just had an oil problem of some sort.”

David Reutimann was the best of the Toyota bunch at 15th, and was followed by Jeremy Mayfield (16th), Mike Skinner (18th), Waltrip, Blaney (39th), A.J. Allmendinger (40th), Brian Vickers (45th) and Jarrett (50th).

Juan Pablo Montoya flirted with the front row, putting his new No. 42 Dodge in the second spot only to be bumped from it moments later by teammate David Stremme.

Stremme ended up third and Montoya was fourth, but teammate Reed Sorenson was a disappointing 44th after blowing a battery in his car on his second qualifying lap. Still, it was a radical improvement for the Chip Ganassi Racing team, which is looking to Montoya to help jump-start a program that hasn’t won a Cup race since 2002.

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