John Raoux / AP

Dale Earnhardt Jr. celebrates in victory lane after winning the first of two NASCAR Gatorage 150 qualifying auto races on Thursday.

“I feel like we got a shot, you know what I mean?” Earnhardt said. “Nobody is boastful enough, I don’t think, personality-wise, to come in here and claim that. I wouldn’t expect anybody to do that.

“But I think we got a great shot.”

Earnhardt goes into the 500 searching for his first points-victory in almost two years. After winning two races so far this Speedweeks, he seems poised to pull off a rare sweep.

“It’s a Cinderella story,” said Wallace, one of two drivers to race their way into the 500 in the first qualifier. “It looks like he’s going to sweep Speedweeks if he doesn’t break.”

The first qualifying race was a showdown between Red Bull Racing teammates Brian Vickers and AJ Allmendinger, who both had to race their way into the 500 field. Vickers made it in with a last-lap pass of Joe Nemechek to finish 11th and secure his spot in the field.

It was a comeback for Vickers, who was spun by Boris Said three laps into the race and had to make an unscheduled pit stop for a flat tire. Vickers, a one-time star at Hendrick Motorsports, struggled horribly through his first season with Red Bull when the team struggled to make races.

“Oh, it’s like I won the race,” Vickers said. “I think the last time I felt this good was when I won a race (at Talladega in 2006). I mean, the 50th running of the Daytona 500 is special, but just to start the year off right.”

Allmendinger failed to make the 500, finishing 13th in the qualifier. He, too, struggled to make races last season and was disappointed in not being able to put both Red Bull cars in the field.

“I mean, unfortunately, everybody at Red Bull, they deserve to have two cars in,” Allmendinger said. “It’s good that Brian got in, at least, (for) the guys back in the shop but my guys deserve better than that. Just never had the car right.”

Kurt Busch lost power in his Dodge about 10 laps into the race, and the failure had a huge effect on several drivers. Because the 2004 series champion gave his points earned from last season to new teammate Sam Hornish Jr. — a move that ensures Hornish a spot in the first five races of the season, Busch will make the Daytona 500 under the past champion’s provisional.

“We got some burned-up wires under the dash, so that’s not good,” Busch said. “We’ve got the champion’s provisional to fall back on, and so we’re not too worried about it.”

But it created a huge worry for Jarrett, who had hoped the provisional still would be available for him just in case he failed to race his way into the field in the second qualifying race. It didn’t matter, though, when Jarrett finished ninth in his qualifier.

“Certainly, I wanted to be a part of the 50th running of the Daytona 500,” Jarrett said. “Now we’ve got the hard part over with. We’ll go to work on this baby and see if we can tune it up a little bit and see what we can do on Sunday.”