Showers put Daytona 500 under rain delay; race to restart at 8:30pm EST
On lap 39 at 2:13 p.m. EST, the 56th annual Daytona 500 was red-flagged as light rain fell from the sky.
A steady rain has continued to fall, with NASCAR sending the Air Titan track drying system on track at 4:17 p.m. EST. However, the rain stopped around 6:30 and NASCAR has been working since to get the racing surface dry to finish off the biggest race of the season.
NASCAR announced at approximately 7 p.m. that they are planning to resume the race at 8:30 p.m. EST. NASCAR allowed teams to send out two crew members to remove the tarps from the cars, clean windshield, remove tape and hook up generators at 8 p.m. EST. NASCAR added that teams will be allowed to adjust tire pressure closer to the restart time and drivers also can change visor on their helmet.
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Kyle Busch is the current leader after starting 37th due to a poor qualifying effort. Busch won the Camping World Truck Series opener on Friday night. Kasey Kahne is second, followed by Denny Hamlin, Brian Vickers and Paul Menard.
So far, the race has been slowed by a pair of cautions with the first caution flying due to debris after Kyle Larson got into the outside wall. The second caution would fly at lap 35 for Martin Truex Jr. blowing his motor.
“Super disappointing,” Truex said, who was competing in his first points race for Furniture Row Racing. “I mean it’s definitely a tough break for the team. The car was super-fast today and I went to bed last night thinking that this was my best shot ever to win the Daytona 500. The car was just so good and we were just riding around, biding our time, being patient and trying to get to the end of this thing.”
Truex Jr. qualified second for the race and was scheduled to start on the front row, though had to start the race in the rear due to being involved in a wreck in the Budweiser Duel.
NASCAR’s Tandem Drafting Rule causes controversy – as expected
NASCAR team owners and fans both expressed the fact that they did not tandem drafting at Daytona so a solution was drawn up. NASCAR outlawed the act, saying that if a driver locked bumpers with another, they would be brought to pit road to serve a pass-through penalty.
During the course of the DRIVE4COPD 300, the drivers – in NASCAR’s eyes – behaved and followed protocol all the way till 35 laps to go, when they deemed that James Buescher had broken the rule.
“I never locked bumpers,” Buescher said over his radio.” There’s a camera on that 22 car. I never locked bumpers. We’re gonna talk about it after the race.”
Buescher ended up serving the penalty, which put him deep in the field, where he would eventually finish.
“(NASCAR) said if you bounce off the car in front of you there’s no call,” Buescher said after the race per Popular Speed. “As far as I’m concerned there was only bouncing and never locked the bumper. I haven’t seen a replay so I don’t know what exactly they’re saying was the time that I got called on but we had been bouncing off of everybody’s bumpers all day — everybody had.
“Obviously, they’re going to make calls and they had to make an example out of somebody. I saw people that actually had their bumpers locked on and didn’t get penalties so I’m still a little bit baffled by it.”
Throughout the course of the event, many drivers pushed the boundaries as fans noticed it and were commenting on twitter. Some examples concerned Kyle Busch and Trevor Bayne, who opted for what became known as the ‘bopping’ method. The method keeps you tucked up to the person in front of you, repeatedly bumping their bumper to push them out in front. However, with keeping closely tucked together, there were moments that you could say the bumpers were locked.
When the rule was revealed back in January, it brought forth questions right away. Putting a decision in NASCAR’s hand brings forth a judgement call and with every judgement call, there seems to be controversy that follows it. Drivers will do whatever it takes to win, and that includes pushing the rules to the limits. If they figure that they can do something and not get caught, they will do it if it leads them to victory.
“You’re mixing fire and nitrous oxide there trying to not cause a big bomb and get penalized,” Kyle Busch commented in how drivers were pushing the boundaries throughout the race.
While an exciting finish took place and many stars emerged throughout the race with close side-by-side racing at the end, ESPN broadcasters and fans were more focused towards debating the length of the bump and whether this was right or that was right.
This is a course of action that NASCAR does not need to head down as we saw the results of Richmond and how everybody was perceived as a result. NASCAR needs to watch the rules they create and how they choose to enforce them or else they may have more fans angry over this, rather than focused on the racing product and stars of the sport.
Crafton opens NCWTS title defense with low-key Daytona
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Feb. 21, 2014) — Matt Crafton opened the defense of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series drivers’ championship with a low-key 13th-place run Friday night in his No. 88 Fisher Nuts / Menards Toyota Tundra in the NextEra Energy Resources 250 at Daytona International Speedway.
Crafton started the weekend strong as he spent time atop the time sheets during the event’s three practice sessions and ended up in the top five in all of them.
When the Truck Series’ inaugural elimination-style group qualifying session was rained out earlier Friday, Crafton earned the fourth starting position based on his practice speeds.
However, that was the best his familiar bright yellow Tundra would show all night — though he did get back to fifth with just 10 laps to go during a wild, 11-lap run to the finish after the fourth and final caution period in the 100-lap race.
“I hesitated as those other guys made a move and I thought I should’ve stayed outside, but I never thought the 17 (Timothy Peters) would make the run that he did,” Crafton said on pit road after the race. “So that was 100 percent my fault. I guess I should have tried to jump up in front of him and see what I could do.
“But like I said, I take that one on the chin because I should’ve known enough to jump up and try it, but it was a shame, because I just didn’t do it.”
Much as the 2013 opener had been, Friday night’s race turned into a struggle to maintain track position and, unlike a year ago when ThorSport teammate Todd Bodine hooked-up with Crafton in the last run and pushed him to ninth in a tandem draft, this time around that wasn’t allowed.
And Bodine, at any rate, was a member of the FOX Sports 1 TV crew downstairs in the “Hollywood Hotel.” Crafton certainly could’ve used some tandem help when he fell back as far as 32nd with 40 laps to go.
“It was a real adjustment because you could bump, but you couldn’t lock (bumpers) and push at all,”: Crafton said of NASCAR’s latest mandate banning tandem drafting in which one truck locks its bumper to a partner and literally pushes the second truck around the racetrack at a much higher speed than either vehicle could attain on its own. “It is what it is and you definitely didn’t want to hit your team truck too hard and wreck him, so you were limited in what you could do.”
All bets seemed off when the fourth and final restart flag waved on the 90th lap.
“No, no, no,” Crafton said when asked if he ever thought there wouldn’t be a caution in the race’s final laps, where plenty of paint was traded as about 15-20 trucks raced side-by-side for the last 11 laps. “There was no way — never in my wildest dreams — did I think we’d pull that off (laughing).
“I thought there would be a yellow, for sure and once we got the white (flag) I figured we were gonna finish the race upside-down and on fire. But I never thought we’d get to the finish line, the way everyone was beating and banging and just sliding all over the place.”
Because several of the drivers that finished in front of Crafton, including race winner Kyle Busch and fourth place Ryan Truex aren’t registered to earn Truck Series points, Crafton will go to Martinsville (Va.) Speedway in five weeks 10th in the championship, 12 points behind race runner-up Peters and 10 behind teammate Johnny Sauter, the defending race winner who finished third.
A year ago at Martinsville. Crafton finished runner-up to Sauter, which gave ThorSport its third one-two finish in its 18-year history, all of them by Sauter and Crafton and all of them in identical order.
“All-in-all this wasn’t a bad way to start the season,” Crafton said. “To be sitting here on pit road with three (ThorSport) Tundras sitting in one piece gives us a starting point and we’ve definitely got some good racetracks coming up.”
ABOUT MENARDS:
With 287 stores in 14 Midwestern states, Menards has the tools, materials and supplies for all your home improvement needs whether just needing a light bulb or can of paint to building a deck or new home. Menards is known throughout the home improvement industry as the low price leader; it’s no wonder their famous slogan – “SAVE BIG MONEY” – is so widely known and easy to remember. Menards does things right – the company’s strength and success can be seen in the well-stocked and maintained stores, the lowest prices in town and the way guests are always treated like family in a hometown hardware store atmosphere.
ABOUT FISHER® NUTS:
Fisher® Nuts is a brand owned by John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc. (NASDAQ: JBSS), a company founded in 1922 that’s a leading processor, marketer and distributor of baking nuts, snack nuts and nut-based products that are sold in multiple distribution channels. Its products can be found under the Fisher®, Orchard Valley Harvest™ and Sunshine Country® brand names and a variety of private labels.
ABOUT THORSPORT RACING:
ThorSport Racing, based in a state-of-the-art 100,000-square-foot facility in Sandusky, Ohio, is the longest-tenured NASCAR Camping World Truck Series team. ThorSport, which has run in the Truck Series since 1996, in 2014 will run the No. 88 Menards Toyota Tundra driven by 2013 drivers’ champion Matt Crafton, the No. 98 Nextant Aerospace/Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff/Carolina Nut Co./Curb Records Toyota Tundra driven by Johnny Sauter and the No. 13 VAMP/VaporBrands International, Inc. Toyota Tundra driven by Jeb Burton in the Truck Series and the No. 13 Smokey Mountain Herbal Snuff Toyota Camry driven by Burton in the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards.
