NASCAR opens with a Bang
The snicker goes that NASCAR, which starts the season with its version of the Super Bowl instead of ending the year with it, is a backward sport.
After Sunday's Daytona 500, NASCAR's detractors were handed additional ammunition. Jimmie Johnson, the race winner, was doused with champagne, and his No. 48 Chevrolet was put on display at Daytona yesterday just a little more than a week after the same car failed postqualifying inspection. Chad Knaus, the No. 48 team's crew chief and a repeat offender, was booted for cheating, reduced to a congratulatory off-site phone call to his driver Sunday.
Tony Stewart, who decried aggressive driving during the Bud Shootout exhibition race and whose concerns persuaded NASCAR to police the tactic of bump-drafting during the Daytona 500, was one of the more hot-headed drivers, punting Matt Kenseth -- intentionally, according to the driver of the No. 17 Ford.
While the veterans were expected to dominate, rookie Clint Bowyer drafted behind Dale Earnhardt Jr., the 2004 Daytona 500 winner, and scored a sixth-place finish. Three-time Daytona 500 winner Jeff Gordon finished 26th after a bump with Stewart and a late-race collision with Kurt Busch. Race officials, who often call for cautions at the first sight of debris, didn't drop the yellow flag despite the raindrops that were falling on the 2.5-mile superspeedway.
Upside-down. Inside-out. But that's what makes the Daytona 500, like most Nextel Cup races, the circus-like spectacle that enchants its followers. As in last fall's Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway, when Robby Gordon flung his helmet at Michael Waltrip's door and Kasey Kahne defiantly parked his car in the path of Kyle Busch, there were feuds -- Stewart vs. Kenseth, Jeff Green vs. Dale Jarrett, Jamie McMurray vs. Kurt Busch -- between the sport's stars that would make pro wrestlers scramble to take notes.
There was a junior version of the Big One, the kind of multi-car wreck that often takes place in restrictor-plate races, when the No. 99 Ford of Carl Edwards ended up front wheels-first on top of the No. 45 of Kyle Petty, giving the Roush Racing driver a last-place showing.
Amid the drama, a race actually took place, featuring the 190-mile-per-hour decisions, strategy, and teamwork that make the Daytona 500, as in Spanish, an upside-down exclamation point that kicks off the season. At Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway, the fastest of NASCAR's tracks, cars must work together in the draft. A driver who takes off without a partner quickly gets left with exhaust fumes in his face.
Leading up to the race, Stewart explained how a driver must earn trust to be successful at Daytona.
''When I started in this series, I couldn't get people to draft with me either," Stewart said last Friday. ''You have to trust the people you're around, especially when it's the biggest race of the year. You're not just going to go out there if you see somebody with yellow stripes [required of rookies on their rear bumpers] and think, 'OK, I'm going to trust this kid that doesn't have a lot of experience here with my racecar.' "
Such is the fate that befell Kyle Busch, the younger brother of the 2004 Cup champion, who finished 23d. The Hendrick Motorsports pilot has been criticized by fellow drivers for his aggressive driving -- he tangled with Stewart late in Sunday's race -- and as a result, was often left hanging when he was seeking a drafting partner.
''I didn't have much help out there today except for my brother Kurt," said the second-year driver. ''In fact, he was my only help."
Ryan Newman, the second-place finisher, tried to overtake Johnson on the last lap by taking the high line. Newman thought he'd get a push from Casey Mears, but the third-place driver stayed on the bottom to block a charging Elliott Sadler. Without help up high, Newman didn't have enough momentum to catch Johnson.
''Unfortunately, Casey didn't decide to follow through with that," Newman said. ''He gave me a good shove to get me out of the way but didn't go with us."
Newman had to try the high line because Johnson, with team engineer Darian Grubb taking Knaus's seat atop the pit box, was blocking down low, the left-side tires of the No. 48 Chevy hugging the yellow line. Johnson said that staking a claim to the bottom groove was the key to winning the race, his first Daytona 500 victory and sixth for team owner Rick Hendrick, who placed two of his vehicles in the top 10.
Meanwhile, the Roush Racing powerhouse, which placed all five cars in the Chase for the Cup last season, had a rotten day. Mark Martin had the best performance for team owner Jack Roush, a 12th-place finish. Edwards, last year's third-place driver in the points standings, completed only 78 laps Sunday and is already 151 points behind Johnson as the series travels to Fontana, Calif., for Sunday's Auto Club 500.
And so the Cup transporters roll on, steaming their way to and from their shops in the greater Charlotte area, arriving in New Hampshire in five months for the New England 300 at NHIS. Between now and then, as the Daytona 500 proved, there's only one thing race fans can expect: the unexpected.
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