Dale Earnhardt Jr. powers to Budweiser Duel win

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Hey, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a strong car.

And he's a pretty damn good driver at Daytona too.

The defending Daytona 500 champion, starting dead last Thursday night, powered his way to the front in the first Budweiser Duel and held off a charge from Joey Logano and Jeff Gordon to win the Daytona 500 qualifying race. Earnhardt will start third in the Daytona 500.

Logano had a run on the last lap but couldn't do anything with it. He moved to the low side but Gordon was there in the space he needed. Combined with Junior moving low to block on the low side and Logano had nowhere to go.

Gordon, the 500 polesitter, finished second. Logano will start fifth after finishing third.

Junior started last after his qualifying time from Sunday's front-row qualifying session was disallowed because his car was too low. He quickly moved to the front of the field and battled with Gordon and Matt Kenseth, who won Saturday night's Sprint Unlimited, for the lead during most of the race.

You can make the case that Kenseth vied with Junior for the rights to the race's strongest car. But with less than 20 laps to go, the field looked like it had enough with Kenseth and he was left out to dry as cars passed on both sides of him. Once he moved outside the top three, he couldn't get back to the front and finished 17th after a late pit stop.

The top-15 finishers outside of Gordon automatically qualified themselves for the Daytona 500. Because of a blown engine, Casey Mears is needing all the top drivers in the second race to finish in the top 15. Danica Patrick is also faced with a top-15-and-in scenario because of the finish of drivers in the first duel. If she doesn't finish among the top 15 finishers outside of Jimmie Johnson, she will likely miss the Daytona 500.

Here are the results of Budweiser Duel No. 1:

1. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
2. Jeff Gordon
3. Joey Logano
4. Tony Stewart5. Clint Bowyer
6. Kevin Harvick
7. Kasey Kahne
8. Jamie McMurray
9. Landon Cassill
10. Cole Whitt
11. Paul Menard
12. Michael McDowell
13. J.J. Yeley
14. Michael Annett
15. Kyle Larson
16. Ty Dillon
17. Matt Kenseth
18. Justin Marks
19. Brad Keselowski
20. Aric Almirola
21. Ron Hornaday Jr.
22. Trevor Bayne
23. AJ Allmendinger
24. Johnny Sauter
25. Casey Mears

- - - - - - -

Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

Follow @NickBromberg