You KNEW there'd be lots of damage at Daytona. The trick is to hoping your driver isn't in it. Luckily, mine wasn't. But, whoo-boy! What a night of racing on the famous Daytona International Speedway, especially since it's the last race before they start repaving it on Monday for next season.
After a rain delay of an hour and a half, a beautiful rendition of "America the Beautiful" by former Hootie and the Blowfish frontman and current country music sensation Darius Rucker and the recognition of six brave men who had received the Medal of Honor for their service in years past, things got going pretty quick. A competition caution at lap 16 (due to qualifying being rained out) was the first yellow flag of the day.
Lap 58 brought out the second caution from the JJ Yeley's #46 blown tire the previous lap. Caution #3 came out when the #43 of AJ Allmendinger got bumped by the #18 of Kyle Busch and goes sliding into the inside wall. Caution #4 happened at lap 105, when Kyle Busch got turned by the close side draft of #42's Juan Pablo Montoya while Busch was out front. Unfortunately for Shrub, that put him out of the race completely.
I thought "The Big One" was going to happen when Matt Kenseth's #17 got really loose and looked like it was going to hit the wall and about a dozen other cars. But, thanks to the incredible skills of Kenseth as well as those around him, no one was involved in any wreck because of that and there wasn't even a caution called.
At Lap 114, the 5th caution of the night was called when the #6 of David Ragan got loose, hitting this year's Daytona 500 winner Jamie MacMurray (#1) and Martin Truex, Jr. (#56). In another showing of how slippery the track was, Caution #6 occurred on Lap 135 when the #26 of David Stremme got loose, hitting the wall and Kevin Conway's #37 as well. After pit stops and on the restart from Caution #6, Caution #7 came out when the #5 of Mark Martin looked to have gotten a bit loose in the close side drafting and hit the #19 of Elliott Sadler and Matt Kenseth's #17.
Just when we thought "The Big One" wasn't going to happen, three and, sometimes, four-wide racing got the best of the drivers as they went back under green from Caution #7. Caution #8 was due to about two-thirds of the field (just about everyone behind 8th or 9th place running) banging into each other. The drivers involved in "The Big One" (some with small damage, some with lots of damage) on Lap 147 were:
| 2-Kurt Busch |
12-Brad Kaselowski |
39-Ryan Newman |
78-Regan Smith |
| 5-Mark Martin |
14-Tony Stewart |
42-Juan Pablo Montoya |
82-Scott Speed |
| 7-Robby Gordon |
16-Greg Biffle |
47-Marcos Ambrose |
83-Reid Sorensen |
| 09-Bobby Labonte |
20-Joey Logano |
48-Jimmie Johnson |
98-Paul Menard |
| 11-Denny Hamlin |
31-Jeff Burton |
77-Sam Hornish Jr |
After the red flag (for cleanup) gave way to yellow and got going under green, the remaining 20 drivers (most of them pretty banged up) headed toward that checkered flag when, on Lap 158 of 160, Sam Hornish Jr's #77 got loose and bumped into the #2 of Kurt Busch (who looked to be charging to the head of the field even after his involvement in the big wreck just 10 laps before) and Elliott Sadler's #19, bringing out Caution #9. Since it was just shy of the white flag, the first Green/White/Checker was attempted. Kevin Harvick (#29 and points leader) and his teammates Jeff Burton (#31) and Clint Bowyer (#33) were trying to fend off the #9 of Kasey Kahne and the only two Hendrick teammates left running; Jeff Gordon (#24) and Dale Earnhardt Jr (#88 - the winner of the Nationwide race at Daytona the night before in a car with his daddy's number 3 and paint scheme). Kahne and Gordon tried their best to take the lead, but Harvick prevailed. What a race!
The next NASCAR Sprint Cup race will also be a night race on Saturday, July 10 at 7:30pm Eastern on TNT at Chicagoland Speedway. With only five races to go before the Chase begins, it's still not a lock on who will make it in to compete for the 2010 Sprint Cup.
Top 5 Finishers of the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona:
1. Kevin Harvick #29
2. Kasey Kahne #9
3. Jeff Gordon #24
4. Dale Earnhardt Jr #88
5. Jeff Burton #31
Points standings after finish of Coke Zero 400 at Daytona:
1. Kevin Harvick #29
2. Jeff Gordon #24
3. Jimmie Johnson #48
4. Kurt Busch #2
5. Denny Hamlin #11
6. Kyle Busch #18
7. Matt Kenseth #17
8. Jeff Burton #31
9. Tony Stewart #14
10. Greg Biffle #16
11. Dale Earnhardt Jr #88
12. Carl Edwards #99
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