The sun is shining for the Daytona 500. ‘Big Daddy’ Jeff Gordon will lead the field to green driving the pace car. Fun. The Thunderbirds are flying over the track. Nice! Gotta love the spectacle. It’s kinda funny to see him in a blue button-down with a tie and his red seatbelt buckled on. With pole-sitter Chase Elliott behind him, as well as outside pole-sitter Dale Earnhardt Jr its a pretty nice Hendrick start to the race. There’s not a cloud is site as the cars do the parade laps. What a gorgeous day. MRN is saying the temperatures will get into the low 70s, though they’re in the mid 60s now. LaDanian Tomlinson waves the green flag starting the race. Owen Wilson gives the command to start engines.
I heard someone earlier saying we wouldn’t see the racing we saw from the Xfinity and Truck races. That would be a shame, because truly those have been the best races I’ve seen in several years. They were infinitely more exciting than just about any individual race in recent memory. I want more of the excitement I have had the pleasure of enjoying over the past few days rather than what has become typical Cup racing.
Boy are we starting with technical difficulties though – audio issues with Vince Welch, as well as switching to the wrong camera while he’s talking so we end up looking at Chris Neville, switching to black during a bit of pace car driver Jeff Gordon. Seems like the technical crew is just as excited as everyone else. Welcome to the 2017 NASCAR season. I so love that shot when the field is two-by-two in the banking. Gorgeous!
Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Blaney are in the back having gone to backup cars.
On lap 4 of 200 Dale Jr has been dropped into the middle and is falling back through the field.
The stages are 60-60-80 for the race.
Mike Joy is explaining why they’re not racing hard right now, saying the urgency is not there, because they know they can race from the back to the front like Denny Hamlin did at the Clash.
On lap 11 of 200 Ryan Blaney has moved up 24 positions.
On lap 15 of 200 Joey Logano hits the pits for a tire change. He had a loose wheel.
Green flag pit stops are underway for the JGR and Furniture Row cars on lap 18 of 200.
Erik Jones ran past his pit and had to back up into his stall. Daniel Suarez got popped for too fast entering.
Suarez has a right front flat, so his pass-through penalty was timely. Kenseth also made another stop.
Kenseth and Suarez apparently both flat-spotted their tires.
At lap 26 Ryan Blaney has made it up to fourth.
So far I have to agree, this has not been like the Truck and Xfinity races. I’m bored at the moment. Not much tension building so far – no excitement.
Corey LaJoie hits the outside wall trying to get onto pit road on lap 27 bringing out the caution. He was going too fast to get onto pit road and tried to slow down couldn’t and headed back toward the track in an attempt to avoid Clint Bowyer and went to the wall.
Kurt Busch got popped for too fast exiting.
Nice camera shots overall today – not so much stuck looking at a car’s hood, or out the side window, but mostly shots of the whole field. Just as I say that the number of in-car camera shots seem to have suddenly increased.
According to the radio something big almost happened, though since we’re on the tiny race bit commercial view I missed it.
David Ragan has tire smoke on the 38. He tapped the wall after bouncing off Ricky Stenhouse’s car.
Can we please stop bringing Larry Mc into the conversation. We’ll be listening to a perfectly nice broadcast and then we’re aurally assaulted by Larry McReynodls.
Ricky Stenhouse has tire smoke now from that contact with David Ragan. Reportedly he has a tire going down.
Fisheye on 57. Stop it with that stupid shot.
Martin Truex Jr. and Erk Jones are coming to pit road on lap 57 of 200, just before pit road closes for the stage. Truex had a bad stop and will go a lap down.
Stage one is over and Kyle Busch wins the stage.
Looks like we will restart at lap 68 of 200.
Crank It Up on lap 70 of 200. I wish they would do it without the radio chatter. That’s just distracting from the lovely sound of the cars.
Man when they pulled the camera out and we got to hear the sound of the whole field instead of just one or two cars it was incredible! We need more full field everything – shots and sounds.
Lap 82 of 200 the JGR cars are coming in for green flag pit stops along with Erik Jones. Martin Truex Jr is in the lucky dog spot so he didn’t come in.
Jimmie Johnson has come from 38th starting position to 3rd. Michael McDowell in the 95 is hanging in the top five.
Bunny suggests that these stages are too long when I complained that the race was boring. She said this was the worst race of the weekend so far.
Another group – the Fords – are coming in on lap 60 of 120.
More green flag pit stops on lap 105 of 200. Wreck at the front of the field brings out the caution. KyBu, Dale Jr, Erik Jones, and Matt Kenseth were involved. Jr ended up driving over the front of KyBu’s car. For some reason Kyle’s car just suddenly turned sideways across the front of the field. He says the right rear just suddenly went down. Elliott Sadler and Ty Dillon also got a little piece of that wreck, though Elliott kept going.
Kyle said he had no indication that it was going to happen. He says hes not sure if it was a right rear or a left rear that went down. He said Goodyear tires just don’t hold air.
So far the winners of stage one have not won the races at Daytona.
The red flag is out on lap 109 of 200. Since Elliott kept going he’s now the leader.
Those Toyotas were trying to stay ahead of the leader after pitting to stay on the lead lap.
The caution flag has come out and the field is back underway.
Denny Hamlin is in the free pass position after a 16.5 minute red flag.
Dale Jr has approximately one minute remaining on his crash clock. It takes about 30 seconds to get to your pit box which counts toward the five minutes. Most of the front of the field comes into the pits including leader Elliott Sadler and second place Jimmie Johnson who would’ve been short on fuel if he’d stayed out.
Dale Jr is headed to the garage. He’s out of the Daytona 500.
As a satellite team the Wood Brothers gets cars, parts, equipment and most of the crew from Penske.
Stage two is over and Kevin Harvick wins the stage.
The guys in the booth are excited over last minute moves by Joey ‘Moldy Bread’ Logano and Kurt ‘KuBu’ Busch. I didn’t see anything to get excited over. Still a boring race so far.
Hmph. Hooter commercial. Offensive. The tag line is politically incorrect since 1983. Looks like they’re sponsoring Chase Elliott’s 24. That commercial really struck a wrong chord with me.
Stage three will be the longest at 80 laps.
Dale Jr is out of the infield care center. He says it wasn’t too hard of a hit, but there was just too much damage.
Kyle Larson and Jimmie Johnson will lead the field to the green flag for stage three.
We will restart on lap 126 of 200.
At the moment Chase Elliott is lead, Kasey Kahne is in second and Jimmie Johnson is in third having overtaken Kyle Larson shortly after the restart.
Caution is out for a big wreck on lap 128 as Jimmie Johnson, Danica Patrick, Clint Bowyer, DJ Kennington, Denny Hamlin, the 96, Chris Buescher, Joey Gase all get collected. The 34 is involved, the 37, the 4, the 42 also got a piece of that. Trevor Bayne was pushing Jimmie Johnson who was suddenly in a four-wide situation due to Jamie McMurray going high on the outside and he turned in front of the field collecting a lot of cars. At least 16 cars a part of that according to Mike Joy. Truex, Joey Gase, Matt DiBenedetto, were also involved.
Jimmie, Chris, Danica, DJ and Bowyer all out after that wreck.
Wreck with 65 to go as Elliott Sadler, Stenhouse and Trevor Bayne go spinning bringing out the caution. Ryan Blaney seems to have gotten a piece of that also. Somebody behind Elliott Sadler pushed him hard and sent him up into Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse. The 33 of Jeffrey Earnhardt turned him.
Kasey Kahne and Austin Dillon bring the field to the green flag with 59 to go.
Caution is out on lap 143 of 200 for another wreck that include Jamie McMurray, ‘It’, Newman, Ty Dillon, Landon Cassill, Daniel Suarez, Kyle Larson, Michael Waltrip, Denny Hamlin all involved. Unfortunately we’re on one of those stupid tight shots and couldn’t see what happened.
Jamie Mc caused this one by trying to go inside Chase Elliott who was beside Michael McDowell and after getting Chase out of shape and Jamie ran into the wall in front of the field. Jeffrey Earnhardt involved.
After being stuck watching an in-car camera it went to a different shot that didn’t show the wreck leading Jeff Gordon to say, “Aren’t they wrecking???” Seriously, there need to be many fewer tight/in-car shots and more of the field so we can actually see what’s going on.
McMurray, Suarez and ‘It’ are in the garage and out of the race.
Chase got damage in that incident also. They’ve done repairs and he’s on the track, but Jeff Gordon is concerned about potential suspension damage on the left side of the car.
Once again we’re at a point where there are five cars that haven’t been involved in a wreck.
Caution with 51 to as Joey Gase hits the wall then spins across the field collecting Brendan Gaughan. Joey came up across the front of Chase Elliott sending him into the wall. Brendan Gaughan missed getting hit, but spun while trying to get it back under control.
Afterburner and Cole White are leading the field to green with 47 to go.
Okay, so they put up a big banner across the screen so we can’t see the race as Mike Joy says we won’t miss anything because we’re going Toyota all out – though we were missing everything as he said it due to the big graphic across the entire screen.
Bunny just mentioned that we’re watching a commercial instead of the race when they said we were going all out. And its a Toyata commercial. Now a McDonald’s commercial. Seems that our definition of ‘we won’t miss any action’ is different than theirs’ because we’re missing all the action with commercials.
The radio is indicating a lead change during this commercial break. If the screaming on the radio is any indication it was exciting. Logano muscled his way into the lead.
Now this commercial break is the big commercial tiny race view.
There’s some talk about fuel. KuBu is apparently a half a lap short.
Frankenstein’s team says they’re good to go on fuel. Logano and Truex’s team aren’t saying how they are on fuel.
They have been single file for about a dozen laps so far.
Cole Pearn – Truex’s crew chief – says everybody is trying to save a little fuel right now.
Chase is out of fuel with 3 to go
White flag is out with Larson leading
KuBu wins!!!
It’s Tony ‘Old Man’ Gibson’s home track. Congrats to him on his emotional win.
Congrats to Ryan Blaney on his second place finish.
Congrats to Kasey Kahne on his seventh place finish.
Good finish to a boring race.