Friday night Nationwide Series race. Night race, ho hum. They can do tandem. Ho Hum. Travis Pastrana got the outside pole. Good going Travis! Frankenstein got the pole, again. Give a monster a hat and he thinks he’s a cowboy. It’s good to have a rich, influential grandfather. Carl Edwards in the booth. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Big crash among the usual suspects. Jason White got out of his smoking car and lay down on the grass. Jeffrey Earnhardt is driving tot he garage. Travis Pastrana’s looks like it will require the hook. Safety workers are around Jason and at Travis’ car. The race is red flagged with four laps to go. Travis gets out of his car and shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders. They help Jason white up onto his feet and he walks to the ambulance. Travis came down on Cole Whit in the 44 and took out Jeffrey Earnhardt and Jason White, then was hit by the 55 (Jamie Dick), then hit the wall a couple times, then hit went backwards down the track and the 23 of Robert Richardson. Hmmm, G-W-C finish. James Buescher pushed Matt Kenseth to the finish. Extraordinarily anti-climatic and disappointing. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! It would’ve been nice to see a Nationwide regular actually win the race.
Daytona. Saturday night Cup race. Astoundingly the race started out big! They were three wide throughout the pack for most of the early portion of the race. KyBu led a while. Eventually Jimmie caught up to him and overtook him. The racing was hot and heavy – like rain was coming. I’ve not seen a night race this racy without rain on the radar. They kept up the intensity through the first half of the race. A couple of cautions – the first on lap 22 for Paul Menard blowing up, the second on lap 69 for Joey Logano losing a right front tire and hitting the wall. Good racing between the cautions. They seem to be charging hard.
Caution is out as Martin Truex Jr hits the wall and several cars are collected on lap 97. JPM and Denny Hamlin were collected in that. Denny had been leading the race after the restart. KyBu hit Denny’s car and got some front-end damage. Truex says his car turned like he’d lost a tire. He didn’t know if the air was taken off him or if the 11 got into him.
Caution. Stremme seemed to come down on Ambrose, tried to AJ Allmendinger hit the wall and took out David Stremme and Aric Almirola on lap 126.
Michael Walltrip spins on pit road getting together with KyBu and ends up backward in his pit. Big Daddy (24) was on his way out, Joseph (87) was on his way in, he slowed to wait for Danica to leave her pit, Jeff Gordon went through the grass and dirt to avoid Joseph and kicked up a bunch of dirt. They’re checking to see if he has any damage as he drives around under caution. 28 laps remaining on the restart.
Caution is out on lap 146 as Matt Kenseth is spining, Denny is in it, the 83 was involved AJ Allmendinger also. AJ hit his knees when he got out of the car. He slammed into Denny’s rear end, Jeff Gordon got some of it,. Denny’s back is obviously bothering him when he gets out of the car and walks to the ambulance. He hit the wall head on then was hit from behind. Dave Blaney was also involved. The race has been red flagged. Denny shot up the race track, Kenseth tried to miss him and took out Jeff Gordon and the 83 (Travis Kvapil). AJ and the car behind, the 7 of Blaney, him slammed into Denny who had hit the wall. Denny chose not to talk when he came out of the infield care center. Joe Gibbs followed him to the motorcoach lot. AJ said the hit knocked the wind out of him and ‘hurt the man parts’ so he had to take a breather a little bit. He said, accurately, that everybody scattered and suddenly the 11 appeared in front of him and he hit him as hard as he possibly could unfortunately. Looks like Blaney hit Denny also to send him spinning down the track.
There will be seven laps to go when they restart. Of course all of the talk has been about Jimmie’s recent restart issues. They’re pushing Jeff Gordon to the garage as the field heads to the green flag.
Caution is out on lap 156 as Kasey Kahne slams into the inside wall after being hit by Marcos Ambrose. There will be a G-W-C finish as a result of this wreck – scheduled for 160 laps. Kasey hit hard, but gets out of the car under his own steam and throws part of his harness back into the car. He’s quite angry.
Jimmie Johnson wins with lots of wrecking behind him – two different wrecks. Jimmie is the first person to sweep the Daytona races since 1982. Jimmie led 94 of 161 laps for his fourth win of the season. It’s only the fifth time in 55 years someone has swept the Daytona races. It was previously done by Bobby Allison, Cale Yarbrough, Fireball Roberts and LeeRoy Yarborough. Carl spins into the wall for the first wreck of the finish collecting Scott Speed and David Reutimann. Danica got tangled with the 38 of David Gilliland on the final lap heading to the checkered flag and took out Jeff Burton, Kyle Busch, the 13 (Casey Mears), the 32 (Terry Labonte), Stenhouse, and Scott Speed. Since Carl’s wreck took out quite a few of the cars at the back of the field, Danica’s wreck didn’t hurt too many finishes. Clint Bowyer spun Michael Waltrip out on pit road, but they came back for top five finishes.
| Unofficial Race Results | |||
| POS | DRIVER | CAR | MANUFACTURER |
| 1 | Jimmie Johnson | 48 | Chevrolet |
| 2 | Tony Stewart | 14 | Chevrolet |
| 3 | Kevin Harvick | 29 | Chevrolet |
| 4 | Clint Bowyer | 15 | Toyota |
| 5 | Michael Waltrip | 55 | Toyota |
| 6 | Kurt Busch | 78 | Chevrolet |
| 7 | Jamie McMurray | 1 | Chevrolet |
| 8 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 88 | Chevrolet |
| 9 | Casey Mears | 13 | Ford |
| 10 | Ryan Newman | 39 | Chevrolet |
| 11 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | 17 | Ford |
| 12 | Kyle Busch | 18 | Toyota |
| 13 | J.J. Yeley | 36 | Chevrolet |
| 14 | Danica Patrick | 10 | Chevrolet |
| 15 | David Gilliland | 38 | Ford |
| 16 | Jeff Burton | 31 | Chevrolet |
| 17 | Greg Biffle | 16 | Ford |
| 18 | Travis Kvapil | 93 | Toyota |
| 19 | Terry Labonte | 32 | Ford |
| 20 | Trevor Bayne | 21 | Ford |
Let’s hear it for good finishes for ‘usual suspects’ Casey Mears, J.J. Yeley, David Gilliland, and Travis Kvapil. And congrats to KuBu, Jamie Mc, and Jeff Burton on pretty good finishes.
In NASCAR news this week:
- Chris Economaki will receive the 2013 Squier-Hall Award. The first award was presented during the first Hall of Fame Induction ceremony. During this year’s induction ceremony it was stated that the recipient would be announced at a later date and honored at next year’s ceremony.
- Big flap over roof flap spacers in the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series garages. NASCAR confiscated roof flap spacers from 31 teams across both series. The spacers were not approved by NASCAR. Most teams expect penalties to follow.
Next Race: Loudon (Final TNT race of the season HOORAY!!!!)
GO 48!!!!