The speedway is celebrating the 25th anniversary of Richard Petty's 200th and final Cup series victory. President Reagan gave the "Gentlemen, start your engines" command from Air Force One, then attended the race. Reagan, a former sportscaster, even called a few laps for the telecast.

Richard's son, Kyle, will be grand marshal for Saturday's Coke Zero 400. Also, today is Richard Petty's 72nd birthday.

The occasion also serves to clear up speculation about a rift between father and son. Earlier this year, it was reported that Richard and Kyle had not spoken for about 2 months. The impression was that Kyle, a longtime racer, was miffed over being excluded from any role in the family racing business after Petty Enterprises merged with Gillett Evernham Motorsports.

With Kasey Kahne, Elliott Sadler, Reed Sorenson and A.J. Allmendinger as drivers, the company is now Richard Petty Motorsports.

"My relationship with my father has never been strained," Kyle said Tuesday from Victory Junction Camp in Randleman, N.C., his charity for children with ongoing serious medical issues. "My relationship with the business itself has been strained on numerous occasions.

"We've been in this business since 1948. My grandfather started it. In a family business, you can't take the business home with you every night, there has to be some separation there.

"When the Boston Ventures people came in [last year], there was no place for me. That's not a knock on Boston Ventures. I don't know where the press thinks we're fighting with each other."

Kyle, 49, started doing television work for TNT near the end of his racing career. He'll be in the booth as an analyst on Saturday night. Kyle is looking forward to the celebration of his father's 200th win.

"As you look at milestones, getting to that 200 mark was a big moment," he said. "Whether you like Barry Bonds or not, when you break a record, that's a day that everybody follows. When [Richard] and David Pearson went over 100, it was a big deal. Of all the drivers who have raced, only two have passed 100 and one went on to 200.

"Having the president there, the way the race played out, there are days in sports when you say 'somebody wrote this down and we just performed it.' "

Kyle finished 30th in that 1984 Daytona race. "I think I broke with three or four laps to go," he said. "By the time the race was over, I was already in the shower."

Before heading to Victory Lane, Richard was escorted to the press box atop the grandstand to meet Reagan. They had met before. When Richard was a county commissioner, he and his wife Linda visited with Reagan when he campaigned in Baltimore.

"[Linda] was on the school board and wanted to know what he thought about schools," Richard recalled on a recent conference call. "We [also] talked a bunch of politics. We just really liked him.

"When we did meet at Daytona, he remembered [the first meeting]. So it wasn't like we met as strangers. I might have been strange to him, but he wasn't strange to me."

Reagan, the first president to attend a NASCAR race, must have liked Richard and the other racers. The president stayed after the race for a picnic with the drivers and crews.

"We got the president on the sports pages, and the president got us on the front page," Richard said. "It was a pretty good trade-off."

Weber benched again

Ralph Sheheen again will handle play-by-play at Daytona, with Kyle Petty and Wally Dallenbach Jr. serving as analysts.