Dodge has its day at Daytona

The Daytona 500 was supposed to be a continuation of the Hendrick Motorsports dominance. It was supposed to be the coming out party for Toyota.
What it turned out to be was the return of the Dodge.
Roger Penske can finally add a Daytona 500 win to all his Indianapolis 500 wins. Ryan Newman can put his Daytona 500 win total up against Sam Hornish's Indy 500 win total now too.
After the race, Newman gave all the credit to his Penske Racing teammate, Kurt Busch, for giving him a much-needed push to win the race.
"Without a doubt, he could have easily gone three-wide and split us through the center and made one heck of a mess there going into three, but he chose to be a teammate," said Newman, driver of the No. 12 Dodge for Penske Racing. "That's the most honorable thing that he could do. I would have done the same thing to him. Just thank him a bunch. Thank our Penske/Jasper engine group for the great horsepower."
All the talk leading up to the Daytona 500 was about how great the Hendrick cars still were and how much better the team was going to be with Dale Earnhardt Jr. Junior had a chance to win the race, but dropped back on the last lap and finished ninth.
His Hendrick teammates all crashed or had mechanical problems. Jeff Gordon was the first to go with a suspension failure. Jimmie Johnson was next when he spun out. Casey Mears ran up the track and hit the wall with less than 10 laps to go. That left Earnhardt Jr. alone and without a teammate as the race came to an end.
As for Toyota, the Joe Gibbs Racing teammates of Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch made a late surge, but the best they could do was third place.
This was a race for Dodge. Newman and Busch finished 1-2. Then came Stewart and Kyle Busch, followed by four more Dodges.
Reed Sorenson, Elliott Sadler, Kasey Kahne and Robby Gordon gave Dodge six of the top-eight spots at Daytona. Add Bobby Labonte's 11th place and Dodge had seven of the top 11 spots.
“We got a different situation with this car at this racetrack," Newman said about seeing six Dodges finish in the top eight. "I think that's part of it. I think our Penske/Jasper engine did a great job. That made up for two of the six. That's a lot in itself. Just when you're trying to run wide open, the horsepower underneath the hood makes a big difference when the cars are similar. Outside of that, it's probably a part just racing.”