Truex turns to backup after failed inspection

Martin Truex Jr. will take to the Daytona International Speedway track with no laps of competition under his belt. He missed yesterday's lone practice when his No. 1 Chevrolet was impounded after failing technical inspection.

The roof template did not meet specifications, and the car was taken back to the Research and Development Center in Concord, N.C.

Yesterday's second practice was rained out. This is an impound race, and qualifying is today at 4:10. So Truex will get his two laps of qualifying with his backup car and nothing else before tomorrow night's Coke Zero 400.

Kurt Busch fastest in practice before incident

Kurt Busch turned the fastest lap of the day yesterday, but it won't end up helping him at all. Busch's fast lap of 189.633 mph topped the speed chart in the practice session, but he blew a tire and hit the wall, forcing him to move into a backup car. That means he also will have no competitive laps in the car he'll pilot tomorrow.

"We're supposed to have a harder tire for here, and it is harder because we're sliding around a lot," Busch said. "But we have to have so much weight on the right side and the camber we run with these new cars, they can't build a tire hard enough to last."

Randy Moss makes entrance into NASCAR

To hear Randy Moss tell it, the all-pro NFL receiver is a longtime NASCAR fan going back to his childhood in West Virginia. Now he's a part of the madness, having purchased 50 percent of Morgan-Dollar Motorsports and changing the Craftsman Truck Series team's name to Randy Moss Motorsports.

"You know actually it's really a dream come true because maybe the last five or six years I have been really interested in joining NASCAR but really didn't know what steps to take," Moss said. "Now that I finally took those steps and really teamed up with a great team, the only thing we can do is to just wait and see what happens at the end of the season."

The team will change its number to 81, Moss' jersey number with the New England Patriots. The team has three top-10 finishes in 14 starts with eight different drivers this season. Willie Allen will be behind the wheel when the team makes its debut at Kentucky Speedway on July 19.

He's already a fan, but yesterday made Moss feel like a young one.

"I just met Dale [Earnhardt] Jr. for the first time, and I was more excited," Moss said. "I felt like a kid."

-- Jill Erwin