Welcome to The Speed Blog’s  coverage of the 49th Daytona 500. We will be live blogging during the running of the opening round of the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup season.

Before the race starts I’ll make my prediction that we will be seeing Tony Stewart in victory lane.  We’ll also be keeping a partcular watch on “rookie” Juan Pablo Montoya and on Jeff Gordon as he tries to come from the back of the field.

For the first time since 1979 Ford have scored a 1-2-3 finish in a round of the World Rally Championship. Mikko Hirvonen came home ahead of team mates Marcus Gronholm and Henning Solberg in the Rally Norway which finished earlier today. World championship leader Sebastian Loeb finished 14th.

The Top 10 finishers on the event were:

1.  Hirvonen    Ford         3:28:17.0
2.  Gronholm    Ford         +     9.5
3.  Solberg     Ford         +  3:44.6
4.  Solberg     Subaru       +  4:01.1
5.  Latvala     Ford         +  5:30.7
6.  Galli       Citroen      +  7:05.2
7.  Carlsson    Citroen      +  9:23.7
8.  Kopecky     Skoda        + 11:49.9
9.  Dalsjo      Subaru       + 13:31.8
10.  Mikkelsen   Ford         + 14:28.7

The results of yesterday’s twin Gatorade Duel qualifying races at Daytona saw two familiar faces in victory lane.

Race 1 was won by Two-time Champion Tony Stewart (#20) who already has one victory to his credit at the track this week. Stewart lead 38 of the 62 laps first taking the front as early as lap 18.

The Top 10 finishers were:

• Tony Stewart
• Dale Eranhardt Jr
• Jeff Burton
• David Gilliand
• Denny Hamlin
• Martin Truex Jr.
• Clint Bowyer
• Casey Mears
• Michael Waltrip
• Ken Schrader

Victory in race 2 was snatched on the last lap by four-time champion Jeff Gordon (#24) ahead of Kurt Busch. At one point rookie Juan Pablo Montoya lead the race for 18 laps before being retiring with a damaged car.

The Top 10 finishers were:

• Jeff Gordon
• Kurt Busch
• David Stremme
• Kyle Busch
• Matt Kenseth
• JJ Yeley
• Carl Edwards
• Ryan Newman
• Joe Nemecheck
• Tony Raines

UPDATE: Jeff Gordon’s car failed the post-race inspection after being found to be one inch too low due to a misaligned bolt on a shock absorber. NASCAR have allowed Gordon to keep his victory as they don’t beleive the infraction was deliberate. However he has been moved to the back of the grid for Sunday’s Daytona 500.

In the run up to the Daytona 500 the always entertaining Polite Dissent blog has posted an informative and interesting article on the link between NASCAR and Comic Books.

AGR team-boss Michael Andretti has anounced that he will once again return to the cockpit in another attempt to win the Indianapolis 500.

Meanwhile Honda F1 boss Nick Fry has said that while young Marco Andretti impressed the team during his recent F1 test runs there are no immediate plans for him to run any more test sessions. Andrettis’ focus will now be on the 2007 IRL season.