After an off-season filled with snow, as well as major changes in the rules of the sport, here is what was surprising and not surprising from the 2014 Sprint Unlimited.
Surprising: After twenty Sprint Unlimited victories for Chevrolet, it was surprising that Toyota was in Victory Lane instead. Denny Hamlin won the non-points race, scoring his second win in the Sprint Unlimited at Daytona and becoming the ninth driver to win multiple times.
“The best car won, that’s for sure,” Hamlin said. “It was survival of the fittest.”
“This car was just phenomenal.”
Not Surprising: Daytona International Speedway, especially under a full moon, seems to lend itself to something catching on fire. This time, however, it was the pace car that burst into flames, causing Brett Bodine and a passenger to bail out as quickly as they could.
“The pace car experienced a fire in the trunk area, which contains a purpose-built auxiliary electrical kit to operate the numerous caution lights during the race,” Chevrolet said in a statement. “The pace car driver and passenger safely exited the vehicle. An assessment is underway.”
Surprising: While Jeff Gordon may have been jacked up with excitement thanks to his record of 20 consecutive Sprint Unlimited appearances, he was also jacked up, literally, in the race.
The back end of the No. 24 Drive to End Hunger was sent high in the air during a multi-car crash on lap 36, causing Gordon to have to settle for a 12th place finish.
“Yeah when you get hit like that it’s pretty soft,” Gordon said. “I mean it sends you up in the air pretty good, but it’s not really that severe of an impact for me because the back of the car absorbs so much of it.”
“I knew it was flying up in the air and I was just hoping it was going to sit back down on all four wheels,” Gordon continued. “The funny thing is that we slid in there and I was into Tony (Stewart) and I thought well I will try to drive it back.”
“I put it in reverse I didn’t realize my rear tires were off the ground.”
Not Surprising: It may have been a small field, with just 18 cars on the track, but that did not stop tempers from flaring. Just ask Dale Earnhardt, Jr. who was none too happy with the driver from down under.
“It looks like I was trying to get down a little bit there, and Marcos (Ambrose) went to the outside,” Junior said. “I didn’t know he was out there. Hard racing, and I was upset with him.”
“A lot was happening right there and we just got turned around.”
Surprising: There was no one more surprised with the incident with Earnhardt, Jr. as Marcos Ambrose, especially since in his mind, he was just trying to help.
“I was trying to help Junior there and ended up hurting him and hurting myself,” the driver of the No. 9 Stanley Ford said. “I was trying to push him and there was a little bit of a zig and a little bit of a zag and the next thing you know I helped him in the fence.”
“That’s just what happens here.”
Not Surprising: While Danica Patrick and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. remain romantically involved off the track, they certainly created sparks on the track when Stenhouse rammed Patrick after she got away clean from one of the Sprint Unlimited’s bigger wrecks.
Not surprisingly, however, all was forgiven thanks to some dark chocolate from Godiva.
“Well he got me 18 tin cans of Godiva dark chocolate for Valentine’s Day so I don’t know if he’s trying to butter me up,” Patrick said. “If his hood wouldn’t have been up and had the inability to see obviously there would have been more frustration. It was one of those racing things.”
Surprising: Jimmie Johnson continued his streak of surprisingly poor finishes in the Sprint Unlimited, finishing 14th in the past two years and 18th this year.
“The back of the car got light off of turn four there,” Johnson said. “The car went into a drift and for a second there I thought I could keep it off the inside wall, but the longer I slid the more the wall became a reality and I got it.”
Not Surprising: Kevin Harvick proved yet again that he is nicknamed ‘the Closer’ for good reason. In fact, the driver of the No. 4 Jimmy John’s Chevrolet was the only Stewart Haas Racing driver to finish the race, let alone finish in the top-five.
“For us, we had a really good car,” Harvick said. “Led several laps in the beginning. Then on that restart we couldn’t get organized and wound up getting shuffled to the back.”
“We about got lapped,” Harvick continued. “We kept working on it and working on it and the next thing you know, it was at least drivable and you could hold it wide open again.”
“Heck at one point coming to the white flag, I thought we were going to win the race,” Harvick said. “To come out of here with a fifth place finish and do all the things they did to the car to make it go was pretty awesome.”
Surprising: There was no one more surprised than Kyle Busch with the sparse number of cars racing at the end of this year’s Sprint Unlimited.
“There’s so little cars out there that you’re just kind of on your own trying to figure things out,” the driver of the No. 18 M&Ms Toyota said after finishing third. “That’s kind of the way the race played out tonight.”
“It was interesting there at the end and I don’t know that we’ve ever had so few cars at the end.”
Not Surprising: Joey Logano, driver of the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford for Team Penske, was no doubt humming Carol King’s song ‘So Far Away’ as he finished fourth.
“I’m trying to relive it all in my head right now. It’s crazy,” Logano said. “It’s just so frustrating when you’re that close. It’s so close and you can see it, but it’s so frustrating because you’re going as fast as you can and that’s all you’ve got.”
“These things don’t mean anything unless you win.”
..Also some good driving by Logano not to spinout or wreck when Kenseth went down.
Anybody who saw the in car camera knows that Ricky had a pretty unencumbered view of what was in front of him. And it sure sounded like he was accelerating.