Jimmie Johnson was the surprise winner of the Daytona 500 to everyone but himself
By Lou Modestino
The Daytona 500 became another coup for Jimmie Johnson, his second 500 win. “We had a great fast car and our game plan worked very well. So now everyone can buy a Chevy!” he exclaimed sporting a wide grin in victory lane. JJ also wished all fans who were injured by flying debris at the finish of Saturday’s Nationwide event “a speedy recovery.” Sunday’s win for JJ was his 61st Sprint Cup victory.
Johnson’s crew chief Chad Knaus was all smiles too when he said, “The Daytona 500 is a great thing for us. Being able to do this race today pleases me. Not bad for a guy from Rockford Speedway (Illinois)!” Meanwhile Fox color analyst Darrell Waltrip seemed surprised at JJ’s performance. “He had limited practice at Daytona. You just can’t ever count out the strategy of Chad Knaus.” And Hollywood Hotel announcer Chris Myers quipped, “The Hendrick Team is tops!”
Second place finisher Dale, Jr., revealed, “Me and Mark Martin went together but that thing ran out of steam. I’m still pretty happy with this finish though.” Third place Mark Martin said, “I’m so grateful to all in my Toyota team.” Fourth place finisher Brad Keselowski appeared to be disappointed when he candidly said, “I was in the wrong lane and caught a bad break. But we were still fortunate, in spite of it.”
Fifth place finisher Ryan Newman seemed pleased with his performance saying, “It was a great day for us. We’ll take it.” When questioned by interviewer Wendy Venturni, Newman changed the subject by saying, “Hey, I want to talk about my sponsors!” Sixth place finisher Greg Biffle thought, “The bottom lane didn’t work well today.”
But performing best throughout the entire 500 was Danica Patrick who was pretty much in contention as she managed to dodge all the bullets ending in eighth. “Coming down at the end, I needed to find a hole and someone to help stay up there. I was concerned that I’d get ‘freight trained out’. But it was a still a nice day.” After the half-way mark, we were privy to her conversation with her crew chief. “I’ll be happy with a top ten finish,” she said over the radio.
In our opinion, Patrick proved one thing in this year’s Daytona 500 – she can really run with the “boys”, that’s for sure. Patrick is good for NASCAR as a role model for all aspiring young women who want to race, not counting that her presence on the track will help NASCAR sell lots of tickets as well as solidifying their TV ratings.
As usual the Daytona 500 is always full of suprises such as top drivers Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch running into problems eliminating them during the event. Kenseth, though, would probably have been a threat had he not got caught up in one of the wrecks in the early going. Referring to that, he said, “Someone got into me from the back, but we’ll rebound next week at Phoenix.” Stewart remarked,” I got turned around when the door closed. I’m disappointed.”
Lady luck did not look favorably at Carl Edwards during SpeedWeek, as he experienced his fourth wreck occuring around the 100 lap mark. “I couldn’t get back in line and then ran into trouble. I can’t wait for Phoenix so we can turn things around.” Looking dejected, Kyle Busch, another factor in the race, cooked his motor and he wasn’t pleased with that. “Something in the motor broke. I thought that we would be a factor today because of how good we did in the Duel on Thursday.”
And that horrible accident at the end of the green, white, checker finish of Saturday’s Nationwide race resulted in a subdued victory lane ceremony. “I’m glad to win today, but I’m very concerned about the injuries to the fans in the grandstands,” said the winner of that race, Tony Stewart. Finishing behind him was Sam Hornish, Jr., Alex Bowman, Dale, Jr. and Parker Kligerman of Connecticut.
Rookie Kyle Larson’s car savagely tore through the protective fence, shearing off the front clip of his racer and spewing a tire and small projectiles into the stands, injuring at least 28 spectators. Some 13 drivers were involved in that last lap melee. According to observers as well as Fox’s man in the anchor booth, Mike Joy, Ragan Smith got tagged by Brad Keselowski and that started the chain of events with Larson’s car getting whiplashed and catapulted into the air. Upon coming out of the emergency center, Larson said, “I feel good and I just hope everyone is Ok. I got pushed from behind.” He ended up 13th.
Brad Keselowski, coming in 12th, said, “I thought that I could win it and then there was chaos. I just hope that everyone will be OK.” Justin Allgaier thought, “It was a violent wreck and tough way to end a race.” Dancia Patrick went out on lap 32. The broken fence was repaired by 2 a.m. and we got a glimpse of it at dawn on Fox Cable News. The DIS maintenance crew did a fantastic job and really came through for NASCAR, the teams and the fans.
While there were some that feel that the catch fence did it’s job, we feel it didn’t when you consider the resulting injuries to all of those fans. Those catch fences in front of the grandstands have to be made stronger. We expect that whatever happens as the result of this tragic accident, the safety of those fences must improve. According to Wind Tunnel’s Dave Despain and Tommy Kendall, NASCAR race vehicles have to be slowed down with restrictor plates to 180 mph because no catch fence, no matter how strong it is, will never stop a 3,800 lb. racecar.
John Sauter won the Camping World Truck Series race at Daytona. Coming down to the end Sauter was concerned that his major rival Kyle Busch would attempt to steal his lead away. Sauter slowed down to keep Busch from building a head of steam and passing him on the last two laps. As luck would have it, a wreck brought out the yellow flag one lap from the finish resulting in the race getting the checkered flag under the caution period. Kyle Busch ended up settling for the runner-up spot with Ron Hornaday and Jeb Burton next.