[/media-credit]NASCAR fans have seen strange things happen before – animals on the track, a rolling plastic inflated orange – but after this weekend at Daytona International Speedway, it certainly takes the cake.The race was supposed to begin on Sunday afternoon, however was delayed due to rain. The weather caused NASCAR to postpone the race till 7pm on Monday night, making it the first Daytona 500 to be started on a non-scheduled day and the first primetime 500. This wouldn’t be the end of the chaos, as during the race, a broken part on Juan Pablo Montoya’s racecar would cause him to crash into a jetdryer, setting it on fire.
After all the craziness and on Day 3 of the Daytona 500 (early Tuesday morning), Matt Kenseth came home victorious for his second Daytona 500 victory.
“We had a lot of problems – we had the engine spew out water, fuel issue, radio issue – the team could hear me but I couldn’t talk to them,” Kenseth says. “I gotta thank Greg Biffle for working with me; we had fast rockets. It was all about who was in front of who at the end.”
The victory for Kenseth marks his second Daytona 500 victory and the 300th NASCAR victory for Roush-Fenway Racing.
“It is very fitting for Kenseth to win the 300th victory,” Roush said. “It’s fitting to do it with Jimmy Fenning (crew chief) who has been with Roush Racing for a long time. It’s fitting to do it with Matt Kenseth has been with Roush Racing for a long time. It’s very nice to celebrate our 300th win, winning the 54th Annual Daytona 500 and with it being Kenseth’s second, it’s pretty special.”
A green-white-checkered would conclude the Daytona 500 as contact from Ricky Stenhouse Jr. would send Tony Stewart for a spin, collecting Kyle Busch, Dave Blaney, Ryan Newman, David Reuitmann and David Gilliland.
On the restart, Kenseth made the quick move to get in front of teammate Greg Biffle and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Biffle followed Kenseth all the way around the track, looking for the right time to make his move, but that never came as Biffle was behind Kenseth across the finish line.
“I think it’s a combination of everything, but I think it’s the combination of what would give us the best finish,” Kenseth said of their teamwork.
Biffle would come home third in the end as Dale Earnhardt Jr. would pass him at the start-finish line for second.
“I would have liked to have won, but I told Greg that I was going to push him on the last restart,” Earnhardt Jr. said afterwards. “I thought he was ‘waiting waiting’ and I waited till the last minute for him to make a move, and then made a move.”
Biffle said that he tried to win the race, but couldn’t get a run on Earnhardt Jr.
“All night, Jr had been shoving me against the back of the 17 car at will and at granted, he had someone pushing him,” Biffle explained. “We weren’t locked together but anytime you get locked together, you just go. But once he was against my bumper and I knew he was, I pushed the gas down and I thought we would drive up on the back of the 17 without a problem. It must have just pushed enough air to push the 17 out. So I thought I had to get out from behind him. So I tried to move out and Matt isn’t stupid, but we needed a run. I was also watching my bumper as I had him on me and didn’t know what pressure he had him.”
In contrast, Kenseth said Biffle could’ve made the move while Roush said, “Greg was unselfish and worked with Matt tonight.”
In looking back at the final laps now, Biffle said he should’ve dragged the brake and created some space between himself and Kenseth to get a run.
Denny Hamlin would finish fourth, followed by Richard Childress Racing teammates Jeff Burton, Paul Menard and Kevin Harvick. Pole sitter Carl Edwards would finish eighth, followed by Joey Logano and Mark Martin.
The halfway payday of $200,000 would go to Martin Truex Jr., who would finish the race in 12th behind Clint Bowyer.
The race would see a red flag last for more than two hours after an odd incident that happened under caution with 42 laps left in the event.
As Juan Pablo Montoya came out of pit road and tried to catch up with the back of the field, something would break in the back end of his Chevrolet, causing him to slam into a jetdryer in turn 3. The contact caused a huge jet fuel fire that would take the two hour period to clean up in an 11-step process.
“Well, I thought when I left the pits, I felt a weird vibration,” Montoya said. “I got my crew to check it and they said it was fine. Everytime I got on the gas, I felt the rear moving slightly and just as I asked my spotter about it, it turned right.”
The condition of the race track was in great question after the massive clean-up, but the surface became unharmed and the drivers were able to run the full distance. President Mike Helton said it was important for him to that they take the time to do the necessary clean-up and get the full race in due to the dedication saw from the fans who had stuck around both days.
Montoya’s teammate Jamie McMurray would also have something break on his car, causing a five car wreck with 13 to go that collected Kasey Kahne, Regan Smith, Edwards and Tony Stewart.
The jetdryer incident wasn’t the only big piece of action on track during the Daytona 500. When the race started, contact from Sadler to Johnson on lap two would see Johnson for a spin, and then get hit hard in the driver’s door by David Ragan.
“I’m good,” Johnson said afterwards. “That last hit in the door was pretty hard. We were all just trying to make our lane work. There was a lot of energy there and Elliott got into the back of me, turning me into the wall. I knew sitting in the middle of the track that was someone was going to hit me and Ragan had no place to go. It sucks to be done this early after all the effort into this car.”
“I just want to see the replay to see what bonehead would make a move like that early in the 500,” Ragan said of the incident.
Other drivers collected in the accident would include 2011 Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne, Kurt Busch and Danica Patrick.
“I have no idea what happened,” Bayne said. “This is devastating. We wait a whole day for a race and this happens on lap 1.”
“Any lap that I turn is progression,” she said. “That’s why I was proud of them for getting me on the track. Was there much to gain for me to get back on track? No. But there was experience as I got back up in pack.”
Patrick would finish in 38th in her cup debut, but pick up valuable knowledge.
“I honestly I think I picked up a lot of tips and honestly, I wish the race would’ve been a single file line at the beginning like it was when I got back up there,” she said.
Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon also wouldn’t make it to the finish as he would blow the motor on lap 81.
“It’s pretty strange that we’ve been through some liability testing and if I saw some high temps, I would have expected this,” he said. “I saw some low temps so I thought we were in good shape. It’s just a shame. This is not the way we wanted to start the season with the Daytona 500.”
With everything that happened in Daytona, the rest of the 2012 NASCAR season ends and we’ve certainly learned to expect the unexpected.
[/media-credit]This is the first time in Daytona 500 history that the start of the race has been delayed due to weather. However there have been four times (in 1965, 1966, 2003 and 2009) that “The Great American Race” has started but then was ultimately shortened. The winner declared after NASCAR decided that it was a lost cause to take nearly three hours to dry the 2.5 mile tri-oval or that an estimated start time of lets say, 9:00 p.m. was too late for fans that had already been at the track for 8 hours. Naturally, the process can’t even be started until it stops raining.