Oh What A Night! 2012 Daytona 500

Photo courtesy Getty Images/Nascar.com

The title “Daytona 500” refers to the amount of miles, not amount of hours required to run the race. Right???
The 2012 Daytona 500 will definitely go down as one for the history books. It was the race that never wanted to start, and then seemingly never wanted to end! Thirty-six plus hours and multiple mishaps later, Matt Kenseth held off Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Greg Biffle in a green-white-checker finish to win the event for the second time in four years, but not without incident. Honestly by the time the checkered flag flew just after 1am Tuesday morning, Sasquatch could have crossed the track riding a unicorn and it would have seemed par for the course.

For the first time in its 54 year history the race was postponed to Monday due to rain. Initially scheduled for noon, the race was once again rescheduled due to ominous weather on the forecast for midday.  Surprisingly, the people came back for day two and filled the grandstands once again in hopes of finally seeing the race. You have got to love NASCAR fans, they are loyal and they sure as hell are troopers! It’s not like in other sports where the seats start to empty mid third period in hockey or at the start of the fourth quarter in football (baseball...yeah I would leave too, man those games can be painfully long and boring!). NASCAR fans stick around to the end-rain, shine, fire, fog, and delay after countless delay.

Shelter from the rain. Jimmie Johnson and daughter Genevieve at the Daytona 500  Photo credit AP

As a Jimmie Johnson fan, the race could not have started out any worse.  Just after the field completed their first lap, an unintentional tap from Elliott Sadler in the No. 33 Chevrolet sent Johnson's No. 48 Chevy into the outside wall near the exit of the tri-oval. Then David Ragan in the No. 34 Ford came barrelling into Johnson's car and that was all she wrote.

Thankfully he was not injured and he packed up the family and headed home. To put into perspective how long this race took to complete from this point, Jimmie was already home “tweeting” from his couch as he cheered on his remaining team mates on TV!!  Besides Ragan's and Johnson's cars, Trevor Bayne, Danica Patrick and Kurt Busch also sustained major damage in this wreck but they all eventually returned to the race (Bayne was never able to catch up after the wreck and had a disappointing day as the defending champion). David Ragan was pissed off to say the least, referring to “whoever was at fault” as a “bonehead” on air shortly after. Can’t say as though I blame the guy. It’s the biggest race of the year and without a lap in the books you are gone to the garage for the night.

Photo credit Tom Pennington/Getty Images/Nascar.com

Interestingly, what seemed destined to become the “Danica 500”, never really amounted to that. The media hype and scrutiny surrounding the only third female in history to start at the Daytona 500 (and one who has been marketed as a sex symbol at that!) has been borderline ridiculous.  From the crash footage on Saturday where she “expertly removed her hands from steering wheel and let the car go” (insert giant eye rolls from every driver in NASCAR-no this is NOT new but suddenly SHE does it and it’s ingenious), to the pre-race interview with Darrell Waltrip where he ridiculously states that “within one week she has become THE face of NASCAR”, it was becoming overkill-not just for the “other drivers” but clearly from the look on her face when DW said that, to her as well.  But it will go down in the record books that she finished ahead of Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson, so she will always have that to brag about. Don’t get me wrong, I am not “anti Danica”. She is going to bring in a lot of money and crowds to the track. Many people got sloshed over the weekend playing the “Danica500 Drinking Game” whereby they had to down a shot for every time “Danica” was mentioned on the broadcasts. Needless to say most people were probably completely trashed before driver introductions were underway. She is pure gold to NASCAR public relations. Just let the girl drive. She can drive. Just let her.

Photo credit Getty Images/Nascar.com

And now for my weak attempt at stand-up comedy, following the race I posed this question in my Facebook status regarding the next bizarre incident of the night, “How many NASCAR drivers does it take to blow up a jet dryer??? ..... Just “Juan”.  (I will be here all week, order the roast beef and tip your wait staff generously)

As expressed by many in social media feeds, Juan Pablo Montoya has hit just about everything on a track aside from the pace car! Somehow, inexplicably JPM crashed into a jet dryer under caution, being driven by Michigan International Speedway attendant Duane Barnes, causing a unbelievable ball of fire that you could almost hear Eddie Murphy yelling “NOW THAT’S A FIRE!!”. Both vehicles were burnt to a crisp, but thankfully, both drivers were able to escape the explosion without any serious injuries. JPM was later quoted as saying that Barnes “looked pretty scared”. Understatement of the year considering this guy was riding shotgun on a 200 gallon tank full of rapidly igniting jet kerosene. I know I would have needed to change my Underoos after that one had it been me!  Oh and what did they use to clean up the track after the fire? A whole whack of Tide detergent! Seriously! I can see the commercial prospects now-remember Dawn dish soap and the waterfowl following the oil spill? Use Tide to clean up when you accidentally set your driveway on fire! And oh the irony of after waiting forever and a day for the track to dry, we sit at home and now watch them pour thousands of gallons of water onto the track to wash away the fuel. Good grief!

This little two hour long mishap created the next off the wall set of events to transpire. Dale Earnhardt Jr verbalizing on air over his radio that he needed to “relieve himself”. Yes he needed a bathroom break, as did Kyle Busch and a few other drivers. So one by one we watched drivers emerge from their cars on the backstretch as they were red flag parked while cleaning up the fire, and run to port-a-potties and stand around and chat. And tweet. Yes that is right. For the first time in known professional sporting history, an athlete was posting live updates to his Twitter account from the car. Thank you Brad Keselowski for making that time go by much more entertainingly that having to endure one more minute of Michael Waltrip or the Fox split screen coverage of dual commercials (eventually they will get it right and we will actually see the race all of the time).  It was quite comical to see the drivers all mulling around in a virtual “tweet up”  in a circle around Keselowski, who had pulled out his phone to provide real-time updates to his fans by posting photos and answering questions. As an avid tweeter myself during races, I just about fell off my couch when he posted his first tweet before my eyes on my computer screen as I am watching him do it on the tv screen in front of me. The powers of social media prevailed as his number of followers skyrocketed from about 65,000 at the start of the race to almost 200,000 by the time the fire out! (In a related note, a jealous Kurt Busch was later seen secretly attempting to start his car on fire in order to drum up some followers for himself...allegedly....kidding, just kidding!) There were rumours abound that NASCAR officials were considering fining him for using an “unauthorized recording device”, however this proved to be false. In a statement released today, NASCAR said “Nothing we've seen from Keselowski violates any current rules pertaining to the use of social media during races. As such, he won't be penalized. We encourage our drivers to use social media to express themselves as long as they do so without risking their safety or that of others”. Joey Logano actually tweeted later that he was jealous he didn’t think to put his phone in his pocket. What is this racing world coming to?  Dale Jr laughed it all off saying they all actually had fun out there killing time and actually put the phone to good use by searching out weather data for the rest of the race. Next week we will see they have added cell phone chargers to the cars mark my words!

Photo credit Douglas Jones/US Presswire/Nascar.com

It was also during this two hour sideshow that two pit crew teams from two different drivers both pulled completely knuckleheaded moves by pulling the tear-offs from their windshields during a red flag thus sending both of them to the back of the pack upon restart. Rule books. Read them.

Poor David Blaney. For over two hours he sat in first place waiting to go green on the backstretch. That’s pretty much where his hopes of any win died. He was the only driver who had not pitted prior to the crash. He wouldn’t stay in first long once the green flag would be waved.

When we were ready to fire up the engines, another comical moment occurred before our eyes-pit crews were being loaded on shuttle buses to bring them to the cars on the backstretch in order to assist their drivers with getting back in their vehicles. What next?

What happened next over the final laps were a couple of multi-car wrecks to thin out the remaining packs. A crash on lap 188 took out Jamie McMurray, Brad Keselowski (who predictably tweeted within minutes that he was out of the race and headed home), Kasey Kahne and Aric Almirola. It also caused a great deal of damage to Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart’s cars. One last dust-up occurred on lap 196 when contact from Joey Logano's Toyota and the Ford of Ricky Stenhouse Jr careened into Stewart's Chevy, causing the 2011 Cup champion to wreck and take Kyle Busch and Ryan Newman with him.

Now we were set for a green-white-checker finish that had the Jr Nation on their feet cheering on the 2004 Daytona winner. He had hooked up with Greg Biffle in a two-car tandem that looked like might just be enough of a push to give him the win. But unfortunately that push wasn’t enough and Matt Kenseth persevered to clinch his second Daytona title!

Photo credit Getty Images/Nascar.com

As if the weekend’s events were not frustrating enough for the drivers and their teams, to cap off the strangest Daytona on record, fog had rolled into North Carolina towards the end of the race leaving the majority stranded in Daytona for one more night without any hotel rooms. “Now believe it or not, I can't go home.” posted 4th place finisher Denny Hamlin on Twitter following the race, “Fogged in. Yet another night in Daytona.”  I am sure there were a lot of “foggy fans” getting up (or not) on Tuesday morning for work Denny.

Next week...we head out west to Phoenix!

By Sherri Breaton

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Daytona 500 Rain Delays - What did they do in the Past?

As of 10:40 AM Monday February 27 the tentative start time is 7 PM Monday tonight with Tuesday as a last option. If not, race will be re-scheduled for a later date.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series cars are covered on pit road as they await the start of the
54th running of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla.
Credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images for NASCAR

Excerpt from yesterday's (Sunday) interview with NASCAR President Mike Helton.

Q. Can you talk about coming in on the backside, some of the points you went over before coming to this decision, and are you reasonably certain that the race will go at 7:00? If not, what's plan B? Is it Tuesday? Is it a day in April?

MIKE HELTON: Yeah, the biggest thing I want to ask is the collaboration of a lot of different groups, from weather experts to FOX to Joie and the group at Daytona International Speedway to our own group, competition guys and operation guys and everybody collaboratively working nonstop since we knew we were going to have an issue yesterday to make the absolute best decision we could, understanding that any decision we make is not going to be universally accepted by everybody because when it rains, it just complicates things to an extreme that you can't correct.

But we do want to make the best decision possible, and we did that with a lot of people's input, a lot of effort and a lot of thought process going into the community, public service groups that have to support the event, the ticket buyers who invested in their money and time to be here to see the Daytona 500 as part of Speedweeks, and the fans who were at home expecting to sit and watch the Daytona 500.

So we've had a mesh of all of those stakeholders in the decision making process, but also a mesh of all the stakeholders in making the decision to come to the one we did today. And in today's world, with the ability to communicate, we felt like that instead of sitting here and waiting all day long with the information that we had that presented not a very favorable forecast between now and later this afternoon, I couldn't sit here and guarantee you we'll start at 7:00, but our confidence of starting at 7:00 this afternoon is a whole lot better than it is at noon, which is why we made the plan.

Q. Is there a Plan B if it doesn't go?

MIKE HELTON: Tuesday is an option. We're focused on today and this afternoon right now, but just so everyone knows, Tuesday is an option before we'd have to reconsider packing up and leaving. But tomorrow is an option.

Q. I'm assuming this is a situation where you guys look at it and say we want enough of a window to get the entire race in, that it's not a situation where we want to get it started and get it halfway. And also, with a 7:00 start, is there a drop dead date or time as far as if it's raining then but we can get on the track at 7:30, we're not going to call it at 7:00? If we can't start exactly at 7:00 we're not going to give up at that point?

MIKE HELTON: You're right, it is a function of the entirety of the event, essentially not started yet. Our effort is to run the entire 500 miles, and that's the decision that we'd make initially that includes the entire 500-mile distance.

And the flexibility throughout yesterday still exists today. We're targeting 7:00 because we feel like it's realistic. If it takes a little bit longer to get ready to go, I think everybody is willing to do that to accomplish the conclusion of the Daytona 500 within a reasonable amount of time. So 7:00 is not a drop dead critical moment. It's just the time that we felt like it gave us our best shot right now. But we could go a little bit later if it's necessary.

Past Rain Delays
1963
First 10 laps run under yellow due to rain.

1965
Rain-shortened -- 133 laps (332.5 miles).

1966
Rain-shortened -- 198 laps (495 miles).

1979
First 16 laps run under yellow due to rain.

1992
Laps 84-89 run under yellow due to rain on backstretch.

1995
Red flag on lap 71 due to rain. Red flag lasted 1:44.

2003
Two red flags for rain. 1st: lap 63; 1:08. Rain-shortened -- 109 laps (272.5 miles).

2009
Rain-shortened -- 152 laps (380 miles).

2012
Race postponed from 2/26 to 2/27 because of rain.

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WOW! Now THAT Is What You Call a SHOOTOUT Finish!

Photo courtesy of Nascar.com

0.013 of a second..yep that’s all that stood between Hero and Zero (well technically second place rather than first) at the 2012 Budweiser Shootout at the Daytona International Speedway Saturday, February 18, 2012. Less than a QUARTER OF A SECOND between the driver I love to hate - (Tony Stewart) and the driver I love to hate...Kyle Busch....seriously...not a fan. I should probably clarify something, Kyle is a wheel man. He can drive the wheels off of anything and has clearly proved that time and time again. That man can drive. Period. I just can’t get past his persona, his attitude...his, well.... HIM!

The Bud Shootout has always been billed as the wild ride intro to each year’s racing season and this year did not disappoint. As a fan watching, with no points on the line, you always root for your driver and/or his team mates. But holy smokes, depending on who your team is...there were not many left standing on Saturday night in Daytona! With a fast driven fun filled night under the stars, the fans were left rooting for not too many drivers in the field, and trust me Kyle was not my pick (with all of Hendrick’s drivers in the garage I was honestly throwing my support behind Brad Kesolowski... for some reason, I like this guy. I respect his driving. Yes he is not the “cleanest” but neither was Dale Sr. lol.)

My personal “scary Nascar crash moment” of the night came with only two laps to go and Jeff Gordon when skidding for what seemed like an eternity on the driver’s side before flipping as my Gramma used to say “ass over tea kettle” multiple times then finally and thankfully landing on its roof. Rescuers rushed to the scene and after a few moments pulled Gordon out of the vehicle seemingly unharmed, though not the same can be said about his car. Gordon was treated at Daytona infield medical center, and later released.

KyBu would naturally whine later on the post race telecast stating he “needed to talk to the 24 to find out what that was all about”. Gordon explained the incident, saying, “Every time I got to Kyle’s bumper, he just started getting so sideways, like he was a lot tonight.” It’s called BUMP DRAFTING Kyle!

The return to pack racing also brought a return to the old-fashioned slingshot that once made Daytona unique. Busch hooked up with Tony Stewart in a final-lap dance to separate from the field, then pulled to the outside of the defending Cup champion and crossed the finish line so close you needed a slow-motion camera to determine who won. What a thrill for all of us yelling at our televisions trying to figure out who exactly won (as much as I hate to admit, I was really praying for Tony!). I was wrong. However the fans love this kind of finish!!!  Tony Stewart agreed: "It was definitely a lot more fun, and you felt a lot more eager to be engaged in the race this way than in the two car deal," he said. "I actually had fun racing at Daytona again, which I haven't had for a while, so I'm really, really appreciative to the work that NASCAR has done in the offseason, and the test session, and even after the test of the changes that they made to try to make it better for us out there. I don't know what the consensus is from everybody else, but I had more fun as a driver than what we've had in the past”.

So this is the official kick off to Speed Week and the Great American Race- The Daytona 500. I will be reporting back later in the week, post qualifying with my hopefuls and happenings prior to engines being fired! Although no longer driving for Team Hendrick, my pick has to be Mark Martin. Please if there is a God in Nascar Heaven...he will allow Mark a Daytona 500 win before he gets sent to the retired driver's stables....

It really really really really makes me feel like chewing drywall nails to say this but congratulations Kyle Busch on [robbing Tony Stewart of..]... winning the 2012 Budweiser Shootout....

side note...thank you to my Dad for coming home with a lovely Tony Stewart Office Depot #14 Nascar jacket for me........if will wear it...hopefully nobody pelts me with stones and vegetables and stuff...but I promise I will wear it!!! :)))

By Sherri Breaton

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Get Ready to Start Your Engines!

By Sherri BreatonIn Play! Magazine

Photo Courtesy of Nascar.com

The off-season may have been extended by only a week but for fans like myself along with countless other race fans, it feels like an eternity. In only six more sleeps the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series "unofficially" kicks off with the 34th annual Budweiser Shootout at the Daytona International Speedway on Saturday, Feb. 18. (start time set for 8:10 pm/et. FOX Sports). The Daytona 500 the following weekend is the official start to the race for the Chase.

I am eternally grateful that NASCAR has the shortest off-season of all professional sports. The championship wraps up just prior to American Thanksgiving and kicks off just after that other U.S. holiday.. Superbowl Sunday! Going to Speedweek at Daytona is on my "Bucket List" but in the meantime, my family will continue its ritual of eating fried bologna sandwiches while yelling at the tv dressed in our favourite driver's jerseys (and in my case socks, hat, underwear and a sticker on my face...hey it all helps right? I even garden with my #48 sheepskin gloves and you should see my raspberries!!).

The Bud Shootout is a fun way for both the drivers and fans alike to begin the season each year. With no championship points on the line, and a large purse of prize money, the Shootout is an all out balls to the wall street fight. Criteria for the non-points race are based upon the following qualifications, with eligibility based on a driver having been active in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series during the 2011 season:

• The highest ranked 25 competitors in 2011 Driver Points

• Previous winners at Daytona, including the Daytona 500, Coke Zero 400 Powered By Coca-Cola, and Budweiser Shootout events

Joie Chitwood III, President of the Daytona International Speedway stated that “The criteria for the 2012 Budweiser Shootout ensures race fans that the best NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers will battle for a coveted victory on the historic high banks. Throughout its long history, the Budweiser Shootout has produced plenty of fireworks on the track and race fans can expect another exciting star-studded night of racing as we kick off the new NASCAR season.”

For those unfamiliar with the format, it's run a little differently than the usual NASCAR Sprint Cup point races. The event runs a total of 187.5 miles in two segments -First a 25-lap segment kicks things off followed by a 10-minute intermission (at this time teams are allowed to do any work that would normally be done during a pit stop). The drivers then lineup for a final 50-lap mad dash to the finish line.

Daytona International Speedway is a large 2.5 mile tri-oval. The turns feature 31 degrees of banking in the turns & 18 degrees of banking in the front tri-oval. Daytona is one of the tracks on the circuit that requires restrictor plates creating 2-car drafting tandem dance that fans have come to expect and some hate. A restrictor plate is a device used to reduce air flow and horsepower in a nascar engine. The restrictor plates are used at Talledega and Daytona to reduce speeds for safety. While it can make for exciting viewing as cars are literally stuck to each other's tails, you won't see the 3 and 4 wide passes and movement around the track as you would see at the other tracks.

I am personally looking forward to the debut of Kasey Kahne wearing a Hendrick Motorsports fire suit. Kahne will be participating in all of the upcoming Speedweek activities despite undergoing successful outpatient knee surgery this past Friday morning for a torn left meniscus. HMS must think he is healthy enough to drive because they have no plans to have a backup driver on standby. I am really hoping for great things this year from Kasey. He is an incredibly talented young driver and I think having the very successful Hendrick team behind him will finally allow him to shine.

Last year's winner was none other than bad boy Kurt Busch. Interestingly and not surprisingly, Kurt was recently named in a Forbes.com article, citing a Nielsen/E-Poll Market Research survey as America's 10th-most disliked athlete! ( A little more next week on KuBu. I honestly hope that if I am mentioning Kurt in my blog this season that it is for positive reasons and not for ripping a respected NASCAR icon-Dr. Jerry Punch- a proverbial new one while awaiting a TV throw for an interview. Time to clean up for your act Kurt!)

Of course all eyes will be focused on last years Sprint Cup Winner Tony Stewart to see if he is able to recapture that momentum that drove him to capturing that much coveted Cup. This quote, from Stewart-Haas Racing team mate Ryan Newman's crew chief Tony Gibson. pretty much sums up why people love the rough and tumble Stewart, “You know, Stewart's just an old redneck guy that loves to race and will drive everything.” . Incidentally Tony Stewart fans, Tony will be appearing (as himself) on Tim Allen's TV show, "Last Man Standing" on ABC this Tuesday Feb 14th at 8pm EST.

You might as well know now that Tony Stewart is my arch enemy as far as on the domestic front is concerned as he is my husband Rick's favourite driver. I am a die-hard Jimmie Johnson fan, driver of the #48 Chevy. I am not a band wagon jumper, I have been a fan since his debut on the NASCAR scene on the Busch circuit in 2000. The rivalry can get pretty intense but when it comes down to it we both respect the driving abilities of each other's driver (having won EIGHT championships between them, but I must point out that Jimmie won his FIVE YEARS IN A ROW..enough said? haha it never gets old saying that!!) and genuinely cheer on the other's driver when our own ends up out of contention.

Me & Rick @ MIS 2010

A lot of people ask me "how can you watch that sport, if you can even call it a sport...". Yes I have heard 'em all, "what's so hard about turning left, turning left, turning left?" or my favourite "why don't you just flush a package of Skittles down the toilet and watch them go around and around and around?". As a female fan I am subjected to even further ridicule, "what does a woman know about cars?". That my friends is the beauty of NASCAR. You see, I can hold my own watching a football game without looking too uneducated about the sport. Personally I am more mesmerized by their tushes in tights. Hockey? Hell I was raised in a rink, a veritable rink rat. My brother was a childhood team mate of Bob Probert for crying out loud. I know my hockey too. Do I ENJOY watching it or going to the games? The Windsor Spitfires...you betcha...the NHL..not so much. Thankfully I married a race fan too! I don't need to really KNOW about cars (how to change a tire, where the wiper fluid goes etc) to understand racing. There is so much more the winning a race then how fast a pit crew can change a tire on a stop.

As many of you may have heard out of the mouths of race fans, "go to a race and you will be hooked". It's not just the tire dust, the noise, the food or the race itself...its the PEOPLE! No I am not going to stereotype anyone here. What I mean is this is the only sport where you are not one side pitted against the other. Its not the Wings against the Leafs. Its not the Lions against the Bears. Its 25 drivers, many team mates but striving for individual success. You will see entire families sporting their "#88" Dale Jr. paraphanelia (the JR Nation has an amazing presence at almost every race anywhere and the crowd goes insane every time Dale takes the lead in any given race). You will also see entire families all sporting completely different drivers on their backs and heads. THAT is what makes it fun! Everyone in those stands is there to cheer on THEIR driver, but in the end you always cheer for whoever takes the checkered flag (unless it's one of the Busch brothers!!).

Follow along each week as I talk about what's going on in the world of NASCAR both on and around the tracks, not just from a "woman's point of view", but that of a FAN. I will mainly be covering the Sprint Cup Series but will definitely touch upon the Nationwide Series and the occasional report on the Camping World Truck Series as well. Get ready to go "green" as we head into our unofficially official first week of racing! Let's go racing boys (and girls!)!!

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