Monday was a night of firsts for the Nascar Sprint Cup Series.It was the first time the Daytona 500 had been delayed by rain, the first time a race had been run in prime time and the first time a raging fire had delayed a race.
But in the end, it was Matt Kenseth who was able to get sponsor Best Buy their first win and capture the Harley J. Earl trophy for the second time in his career. He had also visited victory lane on Thursday in his Gatorade Duel qualifying race.
The 54th installment of the Great American Race was to be run on Sunday afternoon, but a wave of rain showers that lasted through the night prevented the race from ever getting started. So Nascar and Fox announced Monday morning that the Daytona 500 would be run in prime time, up against shows like The Voice and The Bachelor. This was expected to be a ratings bonanza for the sport.
Once the race went green, it didn't take long for trouble to start. On lap two, Elliott Sadler accidentally made contact with the back of Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 car, sending the five-time champ head on into the outside wall. When Johnson slid back down the race track, David Ragan T-boned him in the driver's side door. Both drivers were fine after the wreck. Danica Patrick was also caught up in this mess, cutting her Sprint Cup debut very, very short.
Several cars, like Jeff Burton, Dale Earnhardt, Jr, Greg Biffle and Kenseth all proved early on that they had cars capable of winning the biggest race on the schedule. Martin Truex, Jr was also strong and managed to take home the $200,000 "Midway Payday" for leading the race at halfway. This was also a significant lap because the race was now official and rain was just two hours out.
But weather was the least of everyone's problems.
During a caution period on lap 160, Juan Pablo Montoya radioed his crew that his car had a bad vibration in every gear. He came down pit road, the crew didn't find anything and he returned to the track. But when he entered turn three (at a pretty fast pace to catch the rear of the field), something on his car broke and he slid sideways and into a jet dryer.
If you haven't seen this spectacular video, watch it here. You won't believe your eyes.
Both Montoya and the driver of the jet dryer truck were treated by medical personnel and are fine. But Montoya's car was destroyed beyond recognition and the dryer was leaking a few hundred gallons of jet fuel onto the track. The fuel quickly ignited into a raging inferno as track safety crews fought the flames and the drivers watched from the backstrech under the red flag.
Brad Keselowski added to the weirdness by tweeting a picture of the fire from his car captioned "Fire! My view." Because of that, he managed to gain 55,000 Twitter followers during the 2 hour and 5 minute delay. He tweeted several more pictures of the fire and his fellow drivers while they stood around while waiting to return green. He also lost a race to the Port-o-John to Dale Jr.
The race went back green after track crews did a fantastic job of washing the track off, soaping it up with Tide and rinsing it again so it was in racable condition. Leader Dave Blaney, who stayed out to try and steal a win, was then forced to pit for fuel and see his hopes of a victory in Nascar's biggest race disappear. Matt Kenseth resumed the lead and never looked back.
The race ended under a green-white-checker finish. Greg Biffle had Dale Jr glued to the rear of his 3M Ford, but the two couldn't seem to make a run around Kenseth's No. 17. Dale Jr passed Biffle off turn four for second place, but that was as far as he got.
So now Kenseth will try and repeat in Phoenix next week. When he won his first Daytona 500 back in 2009, he won the following week at Auto Club Speedway and he will be looking for that same magic at the newly reconfigured track in the Ariozna desert, which has proved troublesome for the Roush-Fenway driver in the past.
It took 36 hours ot get it started, but this years Daytona 500 was definitely one for the history books. It had excitement, close racing and even spontanoius fire. It will be really fun to see what kind of action we will see at Phoenix on Sunday.
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