I offered that there had been much debate recently about who invented the draft at Daytona, a claim Johnson had long since made for himself along with the creation of the bootlegger turn on the back roads of North Carolina.

So how about it Junior? “Those other guys can talk about inventing the draft all they want,” he said, dander up. “But I was the first one to win a race with it.”

Whatever might have taken place in the preliminary sessions in February of 1960, indeed Johnson took an underpowered Chevy versus the stronger Pontiacs to victory by drafting and saving gas in the second running of the 500. In retrospect, it is clear quite a few may have gotten a piece of the same pie when it came to discovering the effect of the draft at Daytona in practice, but crafty Johnson quickly made the best use of it and can stake his claim accordingly.

From the victory by Johnson, races at Daytona quickly evolved into drafting to pass, or the slingshot. That mode disappeared along with the aerodynamic cars of the 1980’s, followed by the restrictor plate era of no acceleration and the two-cars-against-one pass. That brings us to the present, otherwise known in NASCAR-speak as the winged Car of Tomorrow.

Judging by this year’s finish of the Daytona 500, we have gone from the slingshot to the cannon shot.

Last year’s dramatic finish resulted from Matt Kenseth bump-drafting Kevin Harvick down the backstraight on the last lap, catapulting him past Mark Martin, who couldn’t catch up before the checkers. Harvick and Kenseth weren’t even teammates, nor did they drive for the same manufacturer. It was a typical dog-push-dog maneuver to get to the front at the finish.

This year, Penske Racing perfected this methodology by getting its veteran teammates at the front of the field at the end of the race through pit stop strategy. Ryan Newman got the bump draft from Kurt Busch on the last lap and boom! Newman went past leader Tony Stewart like the latter was a couple of decades behind the times.

The calvary in the form of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kurt Busch was too late in the lower lane to help Stewart counterattack. In other words, Penske’s pit strategy meant its ducks were in a row. “We just never executed at the finish,” said team owner Roger Penske of his team’s losing streak in points races at Daytona of 57, which began with Mark Donohue’s bid in an AMC Matador in 1972. This time, “The Captain” and a team well known for chess moves directed from the pit wall got it right.

For the forseeable future, expect to see more heavily orchestrated team tactics, with teams coordinating their cars from the pits instead of the traditional method of leaving it to the drivers and hoping for the best. After all, Gibbs is receiving $25 million per year from Toyota and has to be examining an improved approach to team tactics on this Monday morning after such a near miss on the heels of dominating earlier races. In the 500, the Gibbs Camrys of Stewart and Busch led 102 of the 200 laps.

There’s been a lot of talk about Indy car and F1 drivers making the transition into NASCAR. But it’s the team owners who have preceded them and made it possible such as Penske and Chip Ganassi. The third Dodge in line on the outside line on the last lap, it bears mentioning, belonged to Reed Sorenson of the Ganassi clan. Juan Pablo Montoya of Ganassi was also in the lead draft as the laps wound down.

If the Car of Tomorrow requires a more detailed understanding of technology when it comes to building a frame that bears aerodynamic loads more effectively, then the boys most familiar with Indy cars might have an edge. Clearly, the Hendrick Motorsports cars, dominant in the shorter races, did not have the right stuff over the long haul. There’s likely some head-scratching on that subject in post-race discussions at Hendrick as well.

In any event, the Indy car guys have some depth when it comes to strategy in 500-mile races, given the experience of winning a race up across the Mason-Dixon line in the month of May that pays considerably more money than Daytona’s version.

The re-birth of NASCAR had long been established (by last week’s Bud Shootout). What’s news this week is that Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t have to win to sustain that momentum, although it helps if he’s in the mix.

As it was, a mix-up between the sport’s current most celebrated Junior and Crew Chief Tony Eury Jr. took Little E out of contention. They flat blew it by sticking with the old-fashioned pit-or-not-to-pit approach and knew it. On old tires, the last hope of Hendrick, which crashed two cars and lost one car to suspension failure, was doomed.

With the concussion of a canon shot, the 50th Daytona 500 instead went to the smartest and the swiftest, if not craftiest.

Jonathan Ingram can be reached at jonathan@jingrambooks.com