Sunday, February 23, 2014

Daytona 500 2014: A running commentary

In a Pre-race interview, Mike Waltrip asked Carl Edwards: “How about a back flip at the end of the 500?”

“Not like Clint did- I want to wait till after the race,” was Carl’s snappy reply. I like that boy!

The “Dale call” commercial is pretty funny.

So the first car out of the 500 and now ranked in last place is Martin Truex- his engine gave way and they are done.

"Looks like something knocked the oil pump belt off. You have about 2 seconds to shut if off before it blows" is what Truex reported when interviewed.

Then the rain, lightening and tornado warnings came to Daytona and the red flag came out… on lap 38. So racing will need to resume since we are well shy of halfway.

As it stood, our top ten were: Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne, Denny Hamlin, Brian Vickers, Paul Menard, Brad Keselowski, Jeff Gordon, Joey Logano, Austin Dillon, and Kurt Busch…

Alex Bowman at 16th

Cole Whitt at 18th

Tony at 32nd

Jimmie at 38th

Red Flag appears to be a long one… time to do some laundry…

DelayDelayDelay…

So now, at 6:20pm, it is dark in Daytona, the AirTitans are working… but it is still pretty wet…

To be continued...

It was 6 hours and 22 minutes of rain delay all totaled.


At 8pm, the broadcast resumed…

Lap 46 saw the green flag drop...

And on pit lane:

Kasey Kahne spun on a wet patch leaving pit road

Kyle Busch and Aric Almirola took stuff with them leaving the pits and were penalized

At 9:34, we hit the halfway mark, so now, even if the rains come, this race is in the books…

Happiness is… Cole Whitt in 7th place on lap 108.

Not so happy- Kasey speeding up on his way into pit road to avoid being wrecked by a slidding car, only to be required to do a pass-through for speeding on pit road…

Clint Bowyer pulled into pit lane with a blown engine- Asked about it his response was, "Everyone is out there having fun and we broke our toy."

Tony Stewart is also done- a fuel pressure issue.

The first "Big One" of course happened when Fox was on a commercial break:  Harvick came up  into Brian Scott and started it. Aric Almirola, Danica, Michael Waltrip, Austin Dilllon, Justin Allgaier, David Gilliland, Paul Menard...

It is after 10pm, we have 45 to go and weather is coming...
By the way, FOX- I hate that you are not doing a driver place scroll- this 9 place roll thing is awful- rethink it!

38 laps to go and the second “Big One” had Dillon into Kyle Larson and the wreck collected Ambrose, Kahne, Casey Mears, Bobby Labonte, Michael Annett and Brian Vickers.
We are under caution and our top five are Dale, Biffle, Edwards, Jimmie and Matt Kenseth... 33 to go and the green flag waves- 82 miles to go...

Trevor Bayne in 16th went into the wall after getting loose and we are under caution with 16 to go- works well for those short on fuel.
88-48 are 1 and 2 for the restart with 13 to go...
Kurt Busch spun out but did so without pulling a caution...
But six to go wrecks Terry Labonte, Ryan Newman, Austin Dillon and several of our rookies... And now fuel is going to be an issue...
88-2 are 1 and 2 with 3 laps to go...
Go Dale on to victory! With cars spinning behind him!  10 years after his first win here.
Junior Nation celebrates! We know our first Chase racer for 2014!

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