Earnhardt, who before Sunday had won a record 30 races at Daytona International Speedway, made the 31st the biggest of his career, finally ending a 20-year drought in the Daytona 500. Driving the No. 3 VW New Beetle, the seven-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion held off many late lap challenges from drivers such as Jeremy Mayfield, Rusty Wallace and Ken Schrader, but held on to win under caution over runner-up Bobby Labonte.

"I finally did it," exclaimed Earnhardt. "We've tried so hard for so many years. Nobody can ask us anymore why we can't win the Daytona 500. My eyes watered up in the car on that last lap coming to get the checkered flag. It's just unbelievable. "All week long they've been saying that you can't win in the bug. ' I can't believe we won it in the fashion we did. We raced em hard all day and I knew from the beginning we had a good race car. We've worked so hard and for so long to win the Daytona 500, the feeling is pretty awesome.

I know Ralph Earnhardt, Neil Bonnett and T. Wayne (Robertson) and all them folks up there were looking after us." The race was slowed only three times by caution, boosting the winning average speed to 172.712 mph.

The opening 315 miles were run incident-free, with the yellow flag finally waving on the 126th circuit for debris after Ward Burton cut a tire. John Andretti and Robert Pressley spun on the 174th lap for the second incident. The day's final caution came out on lap 199 involving a spin by Andretti and Lake Speed.

The NASCAR Winston Cup Series returns to Daytona for the July 4 Pepsi 400, which will be run under the lights for the first time.

BY TONY SWAN Detroit Free Press Auto Critic

ATLANTA -- Like any other car, Volkswagen's new Beetle has strengths and weaknesses.

The strengths: lively handling, a generally Germanic feel on the road, excellent seats and a bunch of cool design touches.

The weaknesses: no backseat headroom, limited vision for shorter drivers, and not much power.

But you probably don't really need me to tell you that the New Beetle isn't like any other car. Its fortunes are tied to a couple of intangibles that aren't easy to quantify: nostalgia and cuteness.

The cuteness quotient is right out there for you to see. Let's call it way cute. Not to mention unique. In the realm of small cars, the new Beetle stands out just as much as the original did en route to becoming the best-selling car of all time.

The new bug does a terrific job of reincarnating the appearance of the much-loved original, and visually reviving a lot of mostly happy memories.

As Volkswagen marketing types observed during the worldwide press preview here, "Everybody's got a Beetle story."

Seeing that shape again reminds folks not only of the original car but also, more important, reminds them of when they were a lot younger than they are now.

That's the nostalgia part: Buy a new Beetle, rekindle your youth.

And after a brief day of touring around the Georgia countryside in some preproduction models of the new car, I'm convinced the nostalgia factor will play a big part in new Beetle's sales during its first year or so on the market.

Every time we stopped, people materialized and asked questions. And sure enough, most of them had Beetle stories.

Few cars in my experience have been such traffic-stoppers, and none prior to this one has come from the small-and-affordable end of the spectrum.

Times change

However, almost all of the folks I swapped stories with were older than 40.

Even Volkswagen admits that younger prospects have a "wait and see" attitude.

Which brings me to the critical difference between the new Beetle and the original.

The original Beetle didn't have any real competition.

Introduced long before emissions and safety regulations, it was cheap to build, buy and operate and was reasonably durable.

American cars during the same period were generally huge and thirsty, and Asian competition didn't really begin to enter the picture until the mid-'70s.

The new Beetle rolls into a much different competitive environment.

Almost every manufacturer in the business today offers a very good small car, most of them for considerably less than the New Beetle's $15,700 (including $500 destination) base price.

The Dodge/Plymouth Neon is an excellent example. Coupe models start at $11,655, sedans $200 higher, and for about $13,000 or so you can have all the goodies that most folks want -- air-conditioning, a decent sound system, and power windows, locks and mirrors.

Beyond that, a Neon is roomier, and it's the most formidable performer in the small car segment.

As for the new Beetle's straight-ahead performance, well, as the VW commercial says: "Zero to 60: Yes."

Then again, zero-to-60 in the original Beetle could be timed with a calendar.

So beyond the shape, what do we have here?