The Headline(s): With weather impending after a lap 119 wreck, Kurt Busch came to pit road after NASCAR gave the one-to-go command, handing the race lead to Justin Haley. NASCAR then reversed course and kept the race under yellow after lightning reportedly struck within eight miles of Daytona International Speedway, necessitating a red flag that wouldn’t be lifted. With persistent rain pelting the speedway, Haley was declared the winner after 127 laps.
Congrats to @Justin_Haley_ on the first career victory at DAYTONA! @Spire77 #CokeZeroSugar400 | #NASCARSalutes pic.twitter.com/0GJeBiiQHf
— Daytona International Speedway (@DAYTONA) July 7, 2019
William Byron, Jimmie Johnson, Ty Dillon and Ryan Newman rounded out the top five.
How It Happened: Starting from the pole as the points leader, Joey Logano benefited from a strong push from Kevin Harvick to take an early lead. For the opening laps, the Ford Mustangs displayed all the speed they showed during Speedweeks in February, with Logano, Harvick and Brad Keselowski moving the low line to the front despite the efforts of Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch on the high side. By lap 11, the top 10 of the field had gone single file, with the Fords holding the point. Ford’s stranglehold on the field continued until they held nine of the top 10 positions before coming as a group to pit road for green flag pit stops on lap 36, with the only incident being Aric Almirola missing his pit stall.
The following lap saw the Toyotas and Chevrolets pit en masse, though with several near-misses; Hamlin got loose on pit road entry and made contact with Kyle Busch, while several cars had close calls entering and exiting their stalls. When it cycled through, the Fords took the lead in a line from the exiting Chevrolets and Toyotas, with Harvick out front by lap 42. Chase Elliott got a line of Chevrolets organized and using the bottom line was able to crack the top five by the end of the first stage. But the stage was led by the Fords, with Logano using a last-lap push from Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. to pass Harvick for the stage win.
Stage two looked to be more of the same, with Stenhouse taking the lead from Elliott thanks to drafting help from six Fords in a line, but that went out the window soon after, with Stenhouse spinning on lap 59 as he cut down on Kurt Busch’s nose racing for the lead on turn 4 exit:
CAUTION!@StenhouseJr goes around as he tries to block @KurtBusch. #CokeZeroSugar400 pic.twitter.com/mxbSXiv2dC
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) July 7, 2019
Though the resulting pit stops resulted in Clint Bowyer taking the race lead, the Fords were shuffled up front when the race went green again on lap 63. By lap 66, Austin Dillon led an organized line of Chevrolets to the race lead on the low side, a lead they’d hold until lap 75 when Kurt Busch spun in turn 3 after contact with the wall, clipping Brendan Gaughan as well.
When the race went green on lap 78, three-wide racing ensued, and it wasn’t long before the first major incident of the afternoon. Keselowski, shuffled to the high side of three-wide coming down the frontstretch, lost control of his machine after getting a push from Harvick, triggering a crash that would also collect the Fords of Daniel Suarez and David Ragan:
Brad Keselowski is done for the day after this wreck at Daytona.
Kevin Harvick gets into the back of him, and mayhem ensues. Watch on @NBC or stream here: https://t.co/ciKLfM2Z8b #CokeZeroSugar400 pic.twitter.com/4cmsAwUoD3
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) July 7, 2019
Dillon kept the lead on the lap 87 restart, and with the help of Hendrick Motorsports pushing, would hold off a lap 95 charge from Bowyer and Stenhouse to win stage two for the bowtie brigade.
As the final stage began, weather was on the minds of all teams, and the intensity of the race up front picked up. Dillon continued to lead the Chevrolet line up front, but with fellow playoff bubble drivers Stenhouse and Erik Jones up front, the battle for the lead was hot and heavy. However, it would be Hamlin that would seize the lead from Dillon on lap 114, before three-wide action also saw Logano and a damaged Paul Menard also competing for the point.
The Big One finally hit on lap 119, when Austin Dillon’s block on Bowyer at the front of the field triggered a massive melee:
We'll let the video speak for itself https://t.co/YE8kJGGjDF
— Frontstretch (@Frontstretch) July 7, 2019
After a lengthy clean-up and numerous penalties on pit road, the race was given the one-to-go command on lap 124, with Kurt Busch and the majority of the leaders who had not yet pitted under the caution to pit road for fuel with the resumption of the race eminent. That handed the lead to Haley, whose crew chief kept him on pit road with weather visibly coming (Austin Dillon noted during his interview at the care center under this yellow that he saw lightning strikes). Before the green flag flew, NASCAR put the yellow back out, citing imminent lightning. By lap 127, the race was red-flagged for good.
Why Should You Care? For one, regardless of circumstance, Haley winning this race is about a big an upset as they come. It’s easily the biggest Cup underdog win since Chris Buescher’s rain-shortened win at Pocono in 2016. Making just his third full-time start in the series, it’s the first example of a Xfinity Series regular taking a Cup win since Keselowski won at Talladega in 2009 and Trevor Bayne won the 2011 Daytona 500.
Interestingly, if the race ends now. … Justin Haley would become the third non-Cup driver to win a MENCS race joining Trevor Bayne (2011 Daytona) and Brian Vickers (2013, NHMS) #NASCAR
— Ray M. Smith (@RayMSmith) July 7, 2019
In Daytona terms, it was the most visible underdog story the track has seen since Dave Blaney was leading the 2012 Daytona 500 in Tommy Baldwin Racing’s No. 36 car during a lengthy red flag to clean up the jet fuel spill resulting from Juan Pablo Montoya’s collision with the jet dryer.
But the tone here was much different. Whereas social media and the broadcast booth was ablaze that race with plaudits for Blaney and dreams of what it’d mean to have the “Buckeye Bullet” win the Great American Race, instead the discussion around Haley and his Spire Motorsports team was a bit more… pointed:
Spire Motorsports — a team that’s shown no interest in being competitive whatsoever and a team with insane conflicts of interest that wouldn’t be allowed in any other major sports series — winning a race is harmful to NASCAR.
It’s harsh. But it’s the truth. https://t.co/j13yXaWcux
— Nick Bromberg (@NickBromberg) July 7, 2019
It’s hard to know where to start with this criticism (and I’m not picking on the Frontstretch alumnus here, he was far from the only writer going off on Spire). But there’s two elements that really bothered me here. Let’s start with the “no interest in being competitive” line. For one, to steal from Jeff Gluck, Haley’s strategy of avoiding wrecks and staying out when the rest of the field pitted is seldom a winning strategy, but it is a strategy, and it worked here. Haley and the No. 77 team played by the rules and won a Cup race. If that’s not trying to be competitive, I don’t know what is.
But more importantly, all of NASCAR’s fans, media, etc. need to take a deep breath here before going after the No. 77 team for competitive reasons. Sure, Spire has been toward the back of the field most of the season, but they’ve contested every race and attempted to go the distance at all of them. It’s still less than a decade ago that Prism Motorsports and MSRP Motorsports (both of which boasted TV analyst Phil Parsons as a co-owner) were doing start-and-park runs as a multi-car effort in both the Cup and Xfinity Series.
Today, start-and-park in the Cup ranks at least is all but extinct. What’s more, Spire Motorsports has not been that far off the efforts of their partner, Premium Motorsports, at the back of the garage. Keep in mind that’s the same Premium operation garnering plenty of plaudits for giving current media darling (and NASCAR multi-race winner) Ross Chastain seat time. Spire is a backmarker team, but they’re hardly a black eye on the sport.
As far as the arguments go about the existence of Spire Motorsports being a conflict of interest, I’m not batting an eye on this one… because the cat’s been out of that bag for as long as I’ve been following the sport. Since that time (2003), I’ve seen TV analysts owning race teams (Brad Daugherty, Rusty Wallace), carpetbagging millions out of the series with start-and-park cars (Parsons) and even leading new manufacturers into the sport (Toyota and the Waltrips). That’s not to mention the revolving door between race teams, race team PR and media present in the NASCAR garage that rivals the door between the public and private sector in Washington, D.C.
There’s also been no shortage of power teams holding vice grips on other competitors in NASCAR. Remember, the origins of Stewart-Haas Racing certainly blurred the lines on NASCAR’s team ownership limits when they partnered with Hendrick Motorsports. Back in the mid-2000s, Hall of Fame Racing was basically an offshoot of the Joe Gibbs Racing powerhouse.
To compare the prohibitions of agency ownership in leagues like the NFL to NASCAR is comparing apples to pineapples. Even with its charter system, NASCAR racing remains an open sport. If I won the lottery tomorrow, there is nothing stopping me from buying race cars and showing up at Kentucky Speedway next weekend with my own team.
Perhaps most telling of all, Haley and Spire, in a Chevrolet, won Sunday’s race by besting Kurt Busch’s Chevrolet on pit strategy. The move also cost Byron a win that would have taken him off the playoff bubble and put the No. 24 Chevrolet team in the postseason. What conflict of interest?
I’ll let Utter finish this one off.
Just one of many hypocrisies https://t.co/tfscJ7HSQ9
— Jim Utter (@jim_utter) July 7, 2019
Drivers Who Accomplished Something
Let’s start with Haley. Granted, he won Sunday’s race by doing nothing (his words, not mine), but his performance at Daytona (no wrecks, and competent strategy) follows up his Cup debut at Talladega, where he had the No. 77 car in the top 15 for much of the afternoon before a wreck. Coupled with his consummate team player performance in pushing Kaulig Racing teammate Chastain to victory in the Xfinity Series race Friday, and Haley’s stock in the Chevrolet camp definitely has soared this weekend. Even money he ends up in the No. 77 for the fall Talladega race at a minimum.
Both Byron and Michael McDowell scored good finishes courtesy of notable evasive maneuvers through the lap 119 big one. Byron, as noted in his rain delay interview, capitalized on the “seas parting” for his No. 24, while McDowell used what Dale Jr. called the “turbo button” to sprint by the carnage on the track’s apron. Byron’s runner-up finish was a career-best, while McDowell’s 13th place finish was his best since the 500 in February.
Johnson’s third-place finish was his best of 2019, his first podium since Bristol last spring and best Daytona finish in a points race since the 2015 Firecracker.
Ryan Newman scored his first top five since Talladega in the fall of 2017 to move back into the playoff picture.
Ty Dillon, Corey LaJoie and Matt Tifft (fourth, sixth, ninth) all posted career-best finishes.
Drivers Who Accomplished Nothing
Ryan Blaney had bright spots during Sunday’s race, taking the lead at lap 64 and at several times working through lapped traffic to get in line with the Fords up front, but his hard-luck 2019 continued. Despite getting a huge break from his buddy Bubba Wallace on lap 113 that saw the No. 43 brake in the center of a three-wide battle to stay off the No. 12, Blaney’s car was utterly destroyed in the lap 119 big one; the 36th place finish was Blaney’s worst since Texas.
The gaping chasm in ride quality between the Kaulig machine that Chastain won in on Friday and the Premium Motorsports ride he drove Sunday was readily apparent from the get go; both Chastain and teammate Quin Houff battled every kind of mechanical malady imaginable on Sunday, from plug wires to bad clutches. Though Chastain didn’t have to spend the extended time behind the wall Houff did, both drivers finished 30th and 37th, respectively, five and 19 laps off the lead.
Despite showing speed at the front of the field, both Austin Dillon and Stenhouse also triggered wrecks while leading the race. Stenhouse’s block on Kurt Busch on lap 59 was the more innocuous of the two, but the fact that both drivers triggered wrecks at the front of the field while already having less than stellar reputations on superspeedways is likely to prove costly, both in terms of losing their best shot at wins to lock into the playoffs and in finding drafting help come Talladega in the fall. As for Dillon’s incident with Bowyer, we’ll just leave this one here:
I’m aware of how petty this is. But the fact that an SHR car just turned Dillon for blocking just puts a smile on my face. #NASCAR #CokeZeroSugar400
— Jacob (@JacobRE1996) July 7, 2019
No driver wrote more headlines leading into Sunday’s race than Keselowski, who single-handedly resurrected the legions of Hendrick Motorsports fans by wrecking Byron in practice in apparent frustration for late blocking that has wrecked the No. 2 car out of several recent superspeedway races (more on that later). For all that attention paid to blocking, however, Keselowski would wreck himself out of the race on lap 83 when he lost control of his machine drafting with Harvick. Keselowski to his credit took full responsibility for the incident, but the fact remains that the No. 2 finished 39th, and that arguably NASCAR’s most accomplished superspeedway racer has not finished in the top 10 at Daytona since 2016.
Insights, Opinions and Fake News
Watching NASCAR Twitter explode after Keselowski’s wreck on lap 83 was about as frustrating an experience as sitting for hours waiting for NASCAR to pull the plug on Sunday’s race. It all started with NBC’s broadcast booth trying to stir the pot when Keselowski got into Harvick while drafting early in stage two, forcing Harvick into the save of the day. NBC wasted no time equating that to Keselowski’s promise “not to lift.” Leave it to Keselowski’s wife to put that fake news story to bed:
https://twitter.com/PaigeKeselowski/status/1147927224689078283
Now granted, it didn’t look great to have Harvick deliver the blow on lap 83 that took Keselowski out of the race. But let’s be very clear here… neither Keselowski nor Harvick were sending messages in either of their incidents. After forcing Harvick into the save early in the second stage, Keselowski stayed behind the No. 4 and kept drafting with him without incident. After the lap 83 wreck, Keselowski fired no barbs at Harvick, acknowledging he lost control of his car. What’s more, NBC and Twitter alike found no Harvick radio bombs celebrating vengeance over the No. 2 car. These two drivers have a less than subtle history with each other… if they were trying to mess with each other, it’d have come out.
As for Keselowski’s remarks, boy does context matter. “I’m not lifting” referred to late blocking, just like the type that Byron threw in this race a year ago that wrecked Keselowski and others. What occurred between Harvick and Keselowski was NOT a block… running on the high-side of three-wide without shifting lanes is driving, not blocking. What Austin Dillon tried to do to Bowyer on lap 119 was blocking. There’s a less than subtle difference between the two, even if that was apparently lost on much of the fanbase Sunday.
And NBC, give us a break with the catchphrases already. Halfway through Sunday’s race, “he’s not lifting” was about to become 2019’s “slide job.” Not to mention that the side-by-side coverage on lap 43 was probably the worst example of it any network has employed, featuring a lead pack shot that cut the lead car out of it and an in-car shot on lap 43 that showed nothing but the backstretch retaining wall.
Per Bob Pockrass, the rationale for not throwing a competition caution on Sunday despite rain greening the Daytona surface was a completely reasonable one:
Crew chiefs apparently told NASCAR that competition caution not necessary. I would think since they need to pit during the stage, they could choose to pit early if they wanted to under green. https://t.co/1oDt6swA1Y
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) July 7, 2019
Though it begs the question… why wouldn’t the “option to pit early” apply to every Cup race at every track? This inconsistency still reeks of weather driving the decision more than safety/competition concerns.
Despite being the fastest cars at Daytona, again, Ford’s Mustangs again went home without a trophy. Meanwhile, Chevrolet’s teamwork up front proved to be more disciplined and organized than Fords, even with a loose cannon like Austin Dillon leading for much of it. Either the rest of the bowtie brigade feared having Dillon pushing (entirely plausible after seeing his move on lap 119) or Chevrolet motorsports leadership are getting a far more effective message through to their drivers than the Ford camp.
The end of Friday night’s Xfinity race was probably the best example of officiating by NASCAR I can remember for as long as I’ve been following the sport; though the race featured three single-car spins during the final run, all three resulted in the cars not hitting the wall, not dropping debris, and staying off the racing line. NASCAR for once showed restraint, keeping the race green during each of those episodes. Fast forward to Sunday, and come lap 59, Stenhouse’s single-car spin brings out the yellow. Consistent inconsistency.
That’s not to say that Friday’s race was perfect. The decision to penalize Haley for (allegedly) forcing Noah Gragson and Riley Herbst below the yellow line at the end of the first stage was a laughable attempt to avoid having to penalize three cars at the end of a stage. Just the latest example of the stupidity of the yellow line rule: let’s paint over it already.
Watching Wallace throw football with the crowd during the lightning delays on Sunday prompted Matt Dillner to wonder why Bubba Wallace isn’t the most popular driver in NASCAR:
OPINION: How @BubbaWallace isn’t the most popular driver in @NASCAR puzzles me. Just sayin
— Matthew Dillner (@MatthewDillner) July 7, 2019
I’d wager an average career finish of 24.4 with no top 10s since 2018 has a lot more to do with it than diversity advocates care to admit.
The more significant discussion to be had about the football tossing with the crowd is that it happened while NASCAR and Daytona were under a “seek shelter” advisory with lightning in close proximity. It’s very hard to take a lightning delay with no rainfall seriously when a competitor is standing on the racing surface playing catch with fans seated in the metal grandstands. Perhaps that’s why Daytona International Speedway deleted their Tweet commemorating the game of catch:
https://twitter.com/BryanDavisKeith/status/1147967641644163072
On a final weather related note, as bad as it looked for Kurt Busch to pit from the lead at one-to-go on lap 124, only to see NASCAR go back to yellow thanks to lightning striking within eight miles of the track, I’m not going to fault NASCAR on that one. The difference between a lightning strike at 8.01 miles away vs. 7.99 miles away is not discernible to the naked eye, and that’s ultimately what Busch’s crew chief Matt McCall had to rely on when deciding to pit from the lead. If nothing else, NASCAR was apparently (and thankfully) consistent with their handling of the weather when compared to last week’s decision to run 11 laps at Chicagoland with the storm coming.
Participation Trophies
Best Paint Scheme: Tifft. Two weeks running for the No. 36 team.
That’s one sweet ride! ? pic.twitter.com/aaM914xjGa
— Front Row Motorsports (@Team_FRM) July 4, 2019
It’s completely appropriate for a race at Daytona Beach… and also a reminder that I should have just stayed at the beach instead of rushing home to better wifi to ensure I could adequately cover Sunday’s mess.
The Kevin Malone “Call It” Award: Harvick’s car. It was so ready to go back to Charlotte that the tires spontaneously combusted:
SOUND UP.@KevinHarvick's tire explodes under the red flag at @DISUpdates. #CokeZeroSugar400 pic.twitter.com/XiXY1bRxT8
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) July 7, 2019
Washed Down the River Bracelet: Kurt Busch. The house (NASCAR) always wins, this time bettering the car with a poker scheme with their lightning call the equivalent of Lucy pulling the football back.
Where It Rated: After two stellar superspeedway races to open the season with the 500 and a rock-solid Talladega show, Sunday’s 400-miler rivaled the Clash in terms of frustration and general ineptitude. I’ll rate this race the same as the showing of Midsommar I saw this weekend; ordering a ridiculously overpriced Coke, getting a Coke Zero Sugar instead, missing the trailers to get it refilled properly and then getting back only to see a movie that failed to live up to any expectations.
What’s the Points: Alex Bowman, Busch, Elliott, Hamlin, Keselowski, Logano and Martin Truex, Jr. have locked into the playoffs by winning races in 2019. If the playoffs started today, Harvick, Kurt Busch, Almirola, Blaney, Byron, Johnson, Kyle Larson, Bowyer and Newman would point their way into the playoffs. Newman currently holds a three point lead over Suarez for the final playoff spot.
Up Next: The Cup Series will try the whole night racing thing again when it heads to Kentucky Speedway on Saturday night. Coverage from just south of Skyline Chili country starts at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network.
About the author
Richmond, Virginia native. Wake Forest University class of 2008. Affiliated with Frontstretch since 2008, as of today the site's first dirt racing commentator. Emphasis on commentary. Big race fan, bigger First Amendment advocate.
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Way to reward the faithful fans! Hand the trophy to a guy who would not have had a chance in hell of winning. If it played out and it should have he would have been run over. Now we have another useless space filler in “The Playoffs”. Did he even finish a competition lap? Terrible. ASSCAR.
Even with his win, Hailey is not eligible for the chase. He is not running for the championship. and he only has three starts total which put him way out of the top 25 in points.
You should brush up on the rules before making stupid statements
Glad the resident curmudgeon hasn’t run out of complaints, valid or not!
I don’t think Haley is eligible for the Monster cup championship. You will have to look for some other reason to put down NASCAR this time. (shouldn’t be hard to do but it gets old)
You are correct. Haley is a full-time Xfinity driver and has chosen that series as the one in which he will collect points.
But, one has to assume that Spire would be one of the 16 teams in the Owner’s Chase, except they won’t crack the Top 30 in points.
Owner’s Chase? Is there such a thing? I know there are owners points but that is not applicable to eligibility for the playoffs.
The driver is the one that is “chase eligible” not the owner. I am sure that the win will help the team in owner’s points and may yield a larger year end prize, but it will have no effect on the playoffs.
Kinda nice to read about an Xfinity driver stealing a win from the cup guys… usually it’s the other way around.
A good race is any race Austin Dillon gets further away from the cutoff line.
And another brain-dead move deservedly fuels more negative feelings towards him. His helmet must be squeezing his “brain” too much.
The whole weekend was just a mess. Poor fans staying thru thick and thin…then told a back marker of no competitive value without a competitive lap ever in CUP is given a participation trophy. NASCAR used to say to stick by fans. They need to know who the winner is. Simple and true, and yet they strung that poor fan base out for a long period of time. Weather! Yah..I get it! Used to spend a couple of weeks every year at Datyona Beach, nice digs beachfront in July. Not a shocker with the weather. But they caved and gave it to somebody who no way in hell would have won under a competitive flag. Even though oddities do happen at these tracks. No way would these people have won. I agree with the guy on YAHOO, a black mark for NASCAR. They screwed up. Shameful. IMO. And no I don’t cheer this man child. He got a participation trophy, and if he choses to ride this fame…he needs to produce and produce bigly. This is not it. Sorry, it is like the trophies the kids who run around a field get. Everybody gets one, but this guy got it. NASCAR sounded like they made some teams mad with what they promised, then delivered. Shocker.
Funny something as clear as you breathing I KNEW AUSTIN DILLOON was going to cause something big! We talked about it and it came true, awhile ago! The arrogance of this chicken hawk looking DBAG is amazing! I cannot stand him. And tangling with the whiner douche they guy who has used up his lucky cards some time ago…BOWYER..Fluck…the perfect storm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am no fan of the YOKO type shenanigans of The baby mama PAIGEY on social having a temper tantrum that was not true. You messed her man bread and butter, in her less than 20/20 vision..she goes after ya on social media!. For someone who said she was great friends with so and so…Well hell, who needs that friend! Just sayin…Paige you know what I am talkin’ about!
This particular tweet I agree with her. The problem all of us have with the media and their beat to death a billion dead horses that just are not true, and if true YAWN YAWN AND YAWN. They are jerks, lazy jerks that cannot to this day, get CUP Champs background stories correct that have been thrown at us “fans” for decades.
Anyhoo Mrs. Keselowski is 100 percent correct on this. The media build up of the BRYON thang and what happened with The Woman Who Wears The Firesuit Husband are and were apples and oranges and they kept on it like a dog with a human leg. Morons. And I am no fan of the 2 car or the wife.
Nascar is looking more and more like F1 with the ‘team orders’ phenomenon at plate tracks. It’s almost as bad as the ‘tandem drafting’ that relegated one driver to second place (at beat) because they had to push a teammate to victory.
Great column, Bryan. You touched on everything I’ve been thinking about this race since it ended. Haley did what a lot of teams have been doing at Daytona for a long time…. hang out at the back to try and avoid the big one, and then be there at the end with a chance to win. Considering how many cars were eliminated in the big wreck, it was a great strategy this time. The fact that it ended with Haley up front is how the cookie crumbles sometime. It wasn’t a great finish, but rain-shortened races are a part of the sport, and field-decimating wrecks are pretty common at restrictor plate/tapered spacer tracks.
I’m a big Keselowski fan and agree that the announcers were making an overly big deal about the “lifting” comment, but Brad should have kept his mouth shut to the media and dealt with the issue between drivers.
It was a good race until it wasn’t.
First off, I was overjoyed to see Kesolowski have a problem, not because I don’t like him but because you don’t intentionally wreck someone in practice ever, no matter what the circumstances. I agree with him about blocking but you don’t wreck someone in practice.
Secondly, I am glad that asshole Dillon got what he deserved. He clearly was trying to block when he caused that massive wreck. Between him and Stenhouse it’s hared to determine who of the two is the biggest dumbass at restrictor plate races. The both know they aren’t good enough to win a real race so the go all out at the RP crapshoot races at the expense of the rest of the field.
I’ll say this about the race. It was OK for an RP race. Not great but not the worst. For the most part they never strung out into a single file parade, most of the time there were at least two lines. To me that’s the minimum you can hope for at an RP track.
Fans of the “Big One” got their pound of flesh thanks to Dillon. Most of the contenders were out as a result so had the race restarted it would have looked much different.
I don’t have any problem with the way NASCAR handled the weather, nor the fact that the weather determined the winner. Undeserving drivers have been handed wins as a result of weather since the beginning so anyone whining about that just has sour grapes. In fact, I think it took balls for NASCAR to call the race when they did knowing that a back-marker driver was going to take away a chance for a big name, well sponsored team to win. I thought we’d be waiting until at least 8PM before NASCAR would throw in the towel.
Kurt Busch should have won that race. If they would have had the balls to stick with their gamble they’d have won. Instead their balls shriveled when they actually had to take that gamble and they pulled their money off the table admitting they were only bluffing. In for a penny in for a pound.
Is it just me or do most of the NBC commentators sound like someone is squeezing their family jewels? Either that or they’re being given ridelin. I have no problem with haley winning. It’s just a result of plate racing. And yea, the big one cometh again.
Yep!!!! Especially Burton and Latarte (but JR isn’t far behind)!!!!
They sound like something amazing and exciting is happening the entire race!!!!
By doing that they actually lesson the significance of the moments that are amazing and exciting!!!!
Like having every sentence have an exclamation point!!!!
It kind of loses it’s impact!!!
Exactly!!!
Come on people give the kid a break. He and his team played by the rules and won. Yes, they are not a super team but where in the rules does it say that a super team can only win. How many times have we seen some big names stay in the back of the field hoping to miss the big one and get a chance to win? During the rain delay I was hoping it would continue to rain so he could win. It’s something new for Nascar, it gets them more publicity.
Oddly enough, I recall last year when everyone was whining and crying about “The Big 3” being the only teams winning. The wailing, stomping, and screaming for “new” winners each week was deafening. So this Sunday one of the small teams win a race for the first time and people are upset that a “deserving” team didn’t win? I’m not making this up, ya just can’t please some people!
I have a completely different take. We all have opinions like butt holes. Here’s mine. This was a lucky dog “winner”, he “won” but he didn’t. He wasn’t competitive at all, far from it. He hasn’t even one a full lap as a leader, NASCAR robbed the loyal fans of some sort of fight with him at P1, because he was told to stay out and everybody else got caught up and had to pit..and then NASCAR called it. So he is not a proven winner because he didn’t challenge a damn person. I have no doubt he would have been run over if it went to green and never heard from again. Now he is “celebrated” as if he did something, and he didn’t. Cheap win. Nothing to get excited about. I love newbies, I welcome newbies..WHO EARN IT, who have the grit the never give up, who race!!!!!! Etc. What did he do? Seriously what did HE do? Nothing, by his own admission. He is not a Davey against Goliath’s. Apples and Oranges. Again, like ass holes, opinions we all have em’.
What we learned is that anyone attending a race may need to build two rain days into their travel plans depending on what unrelated sporting events on Day 2 could impact the broadcast (start) time. Three races in the Eastern time zone in the last two months have been postponed until the following day with three different start times (12pm at Dover, 5pm at Michigan and 1pm at Daytona), the latter two in the column broadcast partner.