Feb. 27, 2012
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Finally, nothing out of the ordinary happened.
In
a Daytona 500 that featured the first postponement in its history, a
ball of fire from a racecar vs. jet dryer collision under caution and a
surfeit of wild action in the closing laps, Matt Kenseth won his second
Daytona 500 when the tandem of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Greg Biffle
couldn't catch the race winner in a green-white-checkered-flag finish.
Earnhardt
made a slingshot move around Greg Biffle to run second in the 54th
running of the Great American Race at Daytona International Speedway.
Biffle came home third, followed by Denny Hamlin and Jeff Burton, as a
late caution necessitated two extra laps beyond the scheduled 200.
Paul Menard, Kevin Harvick, pole-sitter Carl Edwards, Joey Logano and Mark Martin completed the top 10.
Earnhardt
hooked up with Biffle and pushed the No. 16 Ford after a restart on Lap
201, but the pair could not make headway against Kenseth who moved to
the front of the field and stayed there.
Earnhardt expected Biffle to pull out and make a move, but the move never came.
"I
was waiting and waiting," Earnhardt said. "It looked like he might have
been trying to make a move on the back straightaway, but nothing
materialized there. Then we came off (Turn) 4, and I kind of waited till
the last minute for him to have his opportunity to try to pass Matt,
and nothing was happening, so I just pulled out and went around him."
Kenseth had plenty of power at the finish, despite problems with the cooling system that plagued him early in the race.
"We
had a lot of problems -- it was spewing water," said Kenseth, who
notched the 22nd NASCAR Sprint Cup victory of his career. "I have to
give a lot of credit to (engine builder) Doug Yates and the guys at the
engine shop. We had great horsepower.
"I
could get a pretty good start on the bottom and either Denny or Dale
Jr. could push me for a while and then they just couldn't stay attached
and I would get away from them just in time to get in front of Greg, and
the two of us together could make some unbelievable speed. I have to
thank Greg. We worked together really good all day long. He had a really
fast car all day as well."
A
multicar wreck on Lap 188 thinned the herd considerably, taking out a
handful of competitive cars. Jamie McMurray spun wildly near the
entrance to Turn 1, and the chain-reaction collision wiped out the cars
of Brad Keselowski, Kasey Kahne and Aric Almirola and damaged the
machines of Edwards and Tony Stewart.
Another
melee on Lap 196 set up the overtime. After contact from Joey Logano's
Toyota, the Ford of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. caromed into Stewart's
Chevrolet, turning the defending Cup champion sideways and igniting a
pinball-style wreck that also involved Kyle Busch and Ryan Newman.
A
strange weekend that saw the first weather postponement in the history
of the Daytona 500 got downright bizarre during a round of pit stops
under caution late in the race.
Juan
Pablo Montoya brought his No. 42 Chevrolet to pit road under caution on
Lap 160, complaining of transmission issues. His car fell victim to a
strong vibration when he returned to the track, and Montoya slid out of
control at the entrance to Turn 3 and slammed into a jet dryer, which
was against the outside wall, blowing the track.
The
collision ignited the jet fuel in the dryer and set both vehicles
ablaze. Montoya and the driver of the service vehicle both escaped the
wreckage, but the latter -- Duane Barnes, from Michigan International
Speedway -- was taken to nearby Halifax Medical Center for further
evaluation.
"Something
failed in the rear of the car, and the car just spun into the jet
dryer," Montoya said after a visit to the care center. "I left the pits
and felt a really weird vibration, and I came back in and checked the
rear end and (they) said it was OK, and I got into the backstraight and
we were going in fourth gear but wasn't going that fast.
"Every
time I got on the gas, I could feel the rear squeezing. When I was
telling the spotter to have a look how the rear was moving, the car just
turned right."
NASCAR red-flagged the race as safety vehicles arrived on the scene and track workers attempted to put out the fire.
"There's
going to be a big speed bump heading into Turn 3," crew chief Steve
Letarte told Dale Earnhardt Jr., fearful that the blaze would melt the
asphalt. "I will be shocked -- shocked -- if we can get this race
restarted."
Letarte was wrong.
Safety
workers cleared the scene by hoisting the remains of the jet dryer on a
tow truck with a boom to prevent further damage to the asphalt. After a
stoppage of two hours, five minutes and 29 seconds, the event resumed
just before midnight ET.
The
race was barely one lap old when contact from the front bumper of
Elliott Sadler's Chevrolet turned the No. 48 Chevy of five-time champion
Jimmie Johnson hard into the outside wall near the exit from the
tri-oval.
Unable
to avoid the wreck, David Ragan plowed into the side of Johnson's car.
Neither Johnson nor Ragan was able to continue; they retired from the
race in the 42nd and 43rd positions, respectively.
The
cars of defending race winner Trevor Bayne, Danica Patrick and Kurt
Busch were severely damaged in the melee and all three headed to the
garage for extensive repairs and later returned to the track.
"The
steering's off," Patrick said, as she brought the No. 10 Chevy to pit
road. Her crew repaired the rear suspension, but Patrick was 62 laps
down when she reappeared on Lap 66. She wound up 38th in her Sprint Cup
debut.
Notes:
Martin Truex Jr. won the $200,000 bonus for leading the race at the
halfway point . . . The top four drivers when Juan Montoya hit the jet
dryer were Dave Blaney, Landon Cassill, Tony Raines and David Gilliland,
none of whom had come to pit road with the rest of the lead-lap cars.
Irreparable damage to the track or an ill-timed rain cell could have
made a winner of Blaney. . . . Edwards and Kyle Busch had to restart
from the rear when the race resumed for removing tear-offs from their
windshields under the red flag.
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