It was an ominous warning by a grinning Dale Earnhardt.
"I reckon the black is back," said the five-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion Sunday after driving his black No. 3 Chevrolet Lumina from the back of the field twice to win both halves of the 15th annual Busch Clash at Daytona International Speedway."We're at Daytona, we're in Victory Lane and we're happy," Earnhardt said.
That's bad news for the rest of the Winston Cup circuit, which silently cheered in 1992 as Earnhardt had an uncharacteristic off-year, finishing 12th in the points and winning only one race.
But the showing in the 20-lap, 50-mile race for last year's pole winners also set some major griping in motion as the Ford teams, which dominated at Daytona in 1992, winced over a 1-2-3 sweep by Chevrolet on Sunday.
"We didn't forget everything we knew last year," said Junior Johnson, owner of Bill Elliott's Thunderbird. "This is simply a rule change. I think it's obvious."
Davey Allison, the defending champion of the Daytona 500 and a Ford driver, said, "It's obvious to me that the Chevrolets did the best job of politicking over the winter. NASCAR's completely eliminated us from this week. We don't have a chance.
"In the first half, I just watched the Chevys make a game of it - from the green flag. When Dale Earnhardt came pull up side-by-side with everybody else in line on the backstretch, and he doesn't have any help, nobody else has a chance. And the thing about it was his wasn't the only Chevrolet that could do that."
"We're really fired up," Earnhardt said. "The guys on this team really worked hard all winter. They changed the bodies two or three times. It was a big effort by our chassis department, our engine department, everybody on the team, to get us ready for Daytona.
"I'm really pumped up, and I think this is one of the better chances I've had to win the 500, and I'm looking forward to it."
Earnhardt, who won the 50-mile race for the previous year's pole winners for the fifth time, started 13th in the lineup set by a blind draw. But it didn't take him long to establish his superiority, charging through the field and taking the lead from pole-starter Ernie Irvan on lap six.
After a caution-flag break to allow the drivers a chance to pit for tires and adjustments, the field was inverted and the green flag was shown again.
That put Earnhart all the way at the back again. No problem.
He was ninth by lap 12 and fifth by lap 14. Then, following Sterling Marlin's Ford Thunderbird, he moved to second on lap five.
After that it was inevitable. Earnhardt sped past Marlin in the first turn to regain the lead for good.
Two-time Clash winner Ken Schrader moved up to second, with fellow Chevy driver Irvan on his bumper. Those two tried to chase down Earnhardt, but they couldn't get it done.
"I knew they were going to try to gang up and do something to me, but they never could get their act together, so to speak," Earnhardt added gleefully.
"Ernie and I had plenty of hand signals down the backstretch, but Dale was looking, too," Schrader said. "We just didn't have anything for him.
"He's a master of drafting. They don't call him The Intimidator for nothing. Once he gets that nose in there, he's tough to stop."
Schrader finished two car-lengths behind, followed by Irvan, Mark Martin, Ricky Rudd, Allison, Kyle Petty, Marlin, Elliott, Alan Kulwicki, Darrell Waltrip, Rusty Wallace, Brett Bodine, Rick Mast and wild-card entry Jimmy Means.
Earnhardt, who also won both segments in 1991 - the first time the current format was used - averaged 186.916 mph as he led five laps in each segment on the way to winning $60,000 from the total purse of $290,000.
The start of the event was held up when Elliott sprayed oil on the track and onto several other cars during the pace laps. The field was red-flagged while Elliott's car was checked for what turned out to be an over-filled oil tank.
Elliott was later black-flagged by NASCAR for spraying oil, finishing last in the first segment. That gave him the pole for the second segment, and he and fellow front-row starter Waltrip took turns in the lead through the next four laps before Marlin and Earnhardt caught them.