DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Looking back at these weeks of the Daytona 500, the Great American Race had a little bit of everything.

With the ongoing saga of spoiler heights and last-minute changes by NASCAR, it had its share of controversy.

	Bobby Hamilton's car was engulfed in flames after an 18-car pileup on lap 149.

With two lives being lost after a helicopter crashed en route to the Speedway to pick up Joe Gibbs, it had its share of tragedy.

With race and championship favorite Tony Stewart lasting but two laps before his car blew an engine, it had its share of disappointment.

With Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s early tire trouble to his miraculous move back into the top 10, only to again encounter tire trouble and have to take his Chevy behind the wall, it had the roller coaster of hopes dashed, rekindled and dashed again.

With mad dashes to the finish -- despite the inability of anyone to mount a serious challenge to the leader -- in the Bud Shootout, the 125s, the Trucks race, the Busch race and the Daytona 500, it had its share of drama.

For with any race like this with rules like this on a track like this, there's so much potential for things to go horribly wrong.

For this particular race on this famous track, it's all too obvious what could go wrong.

But that aside, there's also the potential for things to go just right.

And for 148 laps, they did. For this was a tale of two, if not three separate races.

The first one saw Stewart and Earnhardt Jr. get knocked out of contention. But there weren't any wrecks, at least not those big ones that are synonymous with restrictor plate races. And NASCAR and its new aero package deserve some of the credit for that.

The rules are a work in progress. When that work will be finished is anyone's guess. And it wouldn't even be that big of a deal if NASCAR was rewriting the book days before the big race at, say, Chicagoland.

But it's Daytona. And everything here is a big deal. The magnifying glasses are out, the spotlight is on the racing world -- on NASCAR's world.

And while the layfan might not totally grasp the physics of a draft or the effects of a spoiler or the restricting effect of a restrictor plate, they will get an idea of what NASCAR's biggest race is all about.

It's about talent, personality and competition. A tremendous amount of each.

At least it was for the first race. Y'know, laps 1 through 148.

To steal from the PGA Tour's ad campaign, "These guys are good." And just as importantly, there are plenty of these guys.

For even when one of the biggest personalities in the sport is knocked out in the opening laps; even when the emotional favorite overcomes one obstacle only to see his tremendous effort end just shy of the midway point; even when the names are out, there are plenty of names left.

When the race resumed after the second caution caused by debris off of the No. 8, here was your top five: Sterling Marlin, Ricky Rudd, Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon, and Matt Kenseth.

Just to recap, that's a two-time Daytona 500 champ and last year's Winston Cup points third-place finisher, a guy who has won 22 races and finished in the top five in Cup points two consecutive seasons, a guy who has won 32 races and had a streak of 12 consecutive years in the top-10 in points end last year, a four-time Winston Cup champion and two-time winner of the Daytona 500, and the 2000 rookie of the year.

That's talent. You mean there are guys missing from this race?

Even after the massive wreck in last year's Daytona 500 that involved as many as 21 cars, the final top five included Earnhardt Jr., Rusty Wallace, Rudd and Bill Elliott. And, of course, the late Dale Earnhardt would have been there, too, if not for his crash. That's an impressive group.

By the way, we're not talking about someone replacing Dale Earnhardt. Can't happen, we all know it. And we're not talking strictly about the strength of an individual driver, but rather of the league as a whole.

In college basketball, key elements of determining how good a team is are the team's strength of schedule and the strength of the team's conference. If some midsize school dominates a weak conference, sure they'll get noticed, but nobody will consider them to be in the same company of a Kansas or an Arizona or a Maryland.

But NASCAR is a legit power conference. Forget the it's-a-restrictor-plate-race-so-anybody-can-win mentality. This circuit offers 40-plus cars that have a legit chance to win a race every week.

This isn't Kentucky vs. Nicholls St. It's Kentucky vs. Kansas, every week.

Very rarely are there blowouts, except, of course, for the tire variety. Occasionally, races are won on strategy more than performance and sheer talent. And why not? If you can't outmuscle 'em, outsmart 'em.

And if you can't do either, just drive along and pray like hell you're able to dodge the wrecks when debris starts falling from the sky.

Race II
End race one. Begin race two.

It still took just one little touch between the Nos. 24 and 29 cars to essentially cut the field in half. The pro? The excitement, the anxiety that comes with knowing that in a split second the entire texture of a race can change. If that doesn't keep people's eyes glued to the screen. ...

The con? Ken Schrader. Jerry Nadeau. John Andretti. Kevin Harvick. Ricky Rudd. Bobby Labonte. All of those guys, among others, had strong cars on Sunday, and each of them had shown that they could run up front and maybe challenge for the win.

Their chances? Gone. Does that seem fair?

Maybe, maybe not. But as it's always explained, "That's racin'."

And you know what? For better or worse, it is.

As usual, this race didn't turn out like it was supposed to. Something happened to drastically alter the story line from anything resembling normal racing reality.

But unreality is normalcy here. And Ward Burton did win the Daytona 500, just like youngster Elliott Sadler finished second, just like crafty vet Geoffrey Bodine finished third. Yes, Geoffrey Bodine -- the guy who somehow escaped death here a couple of years back.

Once again, this race refused to go as planned.

Had Sterling Marlin just stayed in his car (end race 2, begin race 3), he probably would have won. But had Marlin not gone below the yellow and spun Jeff Gordon, the No. 24 likely would have had his third Daytona win (although Gordon does take the blame for that incident). And had Gordon and Harvick not gotten together on lap 149, Bodine and Sadler might have finished in the 30s.

And why did Ken Schrader pit so early with few cars going with him when he was leading?

It's all ridiculous -- totally ridiculous.

A popular sentiment among drivers heading into this race is that they'll just hang on and see what happens. Seems kind of silly to spend all that time and money down here just to buy a raffle ticket when you don't even know if you'll be competing in the Great American Race or the Great American Debacle.

This is NASCAR's showcase event. Sunday was the day it was supposed to show it's best side, which it did. And it didn't.

And in doing both, it was actually pretty incredible.

During Speedweeks, Dave Marcis said he thought on any given day with the right set of circumstances, he could still win a race. Well, those weren't the right circumstances for him on Sunday, but that type of race might have been the type of race he was talking about.

For a while on Sunday -- and for most of the time in this sport -- the best cars run in front.

But on any given day, at any given moment, anything can happen.

And that's actually pretty cool.