Daytona – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

A few thoughts on the rain shortened Daytona 500.

What an odd race. NASCAR starts the race on California time (12:20 Pacific time), Earnhardt causes the big one, taking out Kyle Busch who had led 88 of the first 125 laps, and  rain gives Jack Grouch Roush his first Daytona 500.

The Good:  Tony Stewart, as expected, worked his way from the back of the field, where he had to go because of Saturdays practice crash, to the lead.  We knew that Tony would be strong and he proved us right.  Tony finished in 8th place.

The Bad:  Ryan Newman suffered from a tight car all day which, when combined with a loose wheel forcing a green flag pit stop, lead to a finish of 36th, two laps down.  Newman will need to make a big improvement next week in order to get into the top 35 in owners points.  Finishing ahead of Ryan were Scott Speed* (35th), Robby Gordon (34th), David Stremme (33rd), Jimmie Johnson (32nd) and Aric Almirola (31st).  With a better handling car, Ryan should be able to move ahead of everyone on the list, with the possible exception of Jimmie Johnson.

The Ugly:  Where to start?

• The pre-race coverage by Speed and Fox was a joke.  Digger the Gopher gets his own animated cartoon this year?  FOX must be trying to improve the ratings for that important 5-8 year old group.
• The start time: why in the world would they start the race at 3:20 (scheduled)?  Obviously because it’s 12:20 in California.  Sure I understand that there are fans in California, but why should the rest of the country suffer just so they can see the race at a convenient time.  If they are such great fans, how about they show up for one of the two races they have at Fontana.    They couldn’t sell out the place when the economy was booming so heaven only knows what kind of numbers we’ll have this year.
• The double-standard:  In yesterdays Nationwide race, J.J. Yeley received a 5 lap penalty for “rough driving” when he  “maybe intentionally”  wrecked Steven Wallace.  The question of whether it was intentional could go either way.    Today, Dale Earnhardt Jr. wrecked Brian Vickers, in a move that was obviously on purpose, and caused The Big One which took 10 cars out of the race.  NASCARs response?  There wasn’t one.
• Finally, after 20 minutes of light rain, NASCAR called the race.  This despite the fact that last year in California they kept trying to get a race in until almost 2 am East Coast time while it was raining.

In 30 years of watching NASCAR, this has to have been the worst Daytona 500 I’ve ever seen.  I sure hope it’s not an indication of how the rest of the year will be or NASCAR is going to be racing in front of empty stands and dismal TV ratings.

NEXT UP:  The boys head to California Speedway Auto Club Speedway where neither Tony or Ryan has a win.  In 12 starts there, Ryan has a pole, 2 top 5s and 4 top 10s.  Tony has 15 starts and 3 top 5s and 7 top 10s.

Just as a reminder, this site is not affiliated with Stewart-Haas Racing and the above opinions are mine alone.