For Elliott Sadler, a fifth-place finish in the 2009 Daytona 500 should be cause for celebration. However, the driver of the No. 19 Stanley Dodge couldn't help think about what could have been.

"If you'd have told me at the beginning of the day if I would take a fifth-place finish and lead some laps for the Daytona 500, I probably would have took it," a disappointed Salder said following Sunday's race. "It's a great way to get a good start to the season. But to be a half a lap short from being the champion of the Daytona 500 is very emotional to me. Had a chance to win it. Just made one mistake off of turn four. I didn't drag the brake enough."

The Emporia, Virginia-native appeared to be sitting in the cat-bird seat as threatening weather made its way towards the Daytona International Speedway. Taking the lead under caution on Lap 121, Sadler paraded the field around as the rain closed in.

"My crew chief [Kevin Buskirk] told me for the last 45 minutes of the race that it's raining on the radar," Sadler explained. "You know, this is his first race with me as a crew chief. I said, Welcome to Elliott Sadler's world. It's probably raining all around the racetrack. When I need it, in the lap where I get passed, it starts raining in turn three."

Trying to hold off the pack as each lap ticked away and the rain crept closer, Sadler had a hungry Matt Kenseth in his rear view mirror and a hard-charging Kevin Harvick coming through the field. Going through the tri-oval on Lap 145 Sadler pulled away from the field just a bit. Creating too much of a gap, Kenseth and Harvick got a great run on Sadler's No. 19 Dodge. As they made their way towards Turn 1, Kenseth dove to the inside of Sadler, pushing him to the high side and out of the lead.

"I was a little sick to my stomach," Sadler said of losing the lead late in the race. "I choose to go high because my car wasn't really good on the bottom the whole day. When my spotter told me the 29 was pushing the 17, I could see him coming. Had a really good run. I had to either make a choice, let him go to the outside of me or under me. I decided to let him go under me and hopefully try to side draft a little bit. They had such a good head-of-steam.

"You know, I can play that pass back in my head a million times between now and when I leave to go to California, but it's not really going to change the outcome," Sadler added. "I needed to do a better job leading the race and put my car in a position to make it wider for them to pass. I can sit here and try to be a Monday morning quarterback, but it's not going to work."

For Sadler, this winter was a roller coaster ride he'd soon like to forget. At one point during the off-season Sadler lost his ride to AJ Allmendinger. Team officials decided to put Allmendinger in the No. 19 car despite a contract obligation to Sadler. In response to the team's decision, Sadler filed a suit against Gillett Evernham Motorsports officials and Allmendinger. The team retracted their previous decision, put Sadler back behind the wheel of the car and the two drivers were forced to work together as teammates.

Putting all of that behind them, the new teammates showed up this week ready to race and prove their relationship was strong.  During Thursday's Gatorade Duel 150, Sadler and Reed Sorenson dropped back in the pack to push Allmendinger to the front and into the show. During Sunday's race the Richard Petty Motorsports teammates worked well in the draft and in the closing laps had three cars in the top-5. Sorenson was shuffled back in the closing laps, but when the rains came and the checkered flag fell, the team was able to put the three teammates in the top-10 (fellow RPM driver Kasey Kahne was involved in an accident and finished 29th).

"It was a tough off-season for everybody," third-place finisher Allmendinger added. "It was a long off-season. There's a lot of stuff that went on throughout the team with the merger. We came here, and I think it shows how strong the team is now. Elliott and Reed were a big factor of why I got into this race. That was a lot of teamwork that was involved to get that to happen."

Unfortunately for Sadler, he knows he had a Daytona 500 victory was within his grasps only to have it slip away in the end.

"I was getting emotional in the car thinking, Wouldn't this be the coolest story?" Sadler admitted. "I came down here as a fan the first time in 1979 and finished second to Ward Burton, and now to have a chance to win the race.

"You know, it's tough," he added. "It's hard to swallow. But I'm proud of my guys. New team. New pit stops. They all worked out great tonight. To look in their faces when the rain was coming down when I got out of the car, man, that was hard, because I felt like I let them down."