 |
| 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
Agree? Disagree?
Drop me line at In Play! Magazine on Facebook
