Being from Wisconsin is a bit like being a Marine, in our case once a Badger always a Badger, so it was good to see fellow Wisconsinite Matt Kenseth from Cambridge win the 2012 Daytona.
But what a journey.
The rainout on Sunday, the delay Monday until the 7 p.m. start in Daytona and yet the stands were crowded when the green flag finally few. Then again, that’s what you’d expect from NASCAR fans at Daytona.
We didn’t expect to see that lap 2 accident up front among the leaders, depriving us of, among others, Jimmie Johnson, Danica Patrick and last year’s winner Trevor Bayne. Then again, you might expect all those hours in motor homes, waiting for the start, to leave some drivers a bit anxious to get going.
We also didn’t expect to see Jeff Gordon out with a blown engine in a Hendrick race car.
And we certainly didn’t expect a 2-hour delay caused when Juan Pablo Montoya spun into one of the jet dryers starting a fire that threatened to end the race.
We did expect to see the return to pack racing that had much of the field bunched up in classic Daytona fashion. Running two-up had its advantages as in the past, but not the breakaway pair racing we had last year, so NASCAR’s rule-making put a stop to that. Good. We love that long lens image of the cars weaving and moving as they race down the back straight as a pack.
The on-car cameras do an excellent job of showing how unstable these stock cars can be at speed and underline the talent needed to drive one at some 190-200 mph. There’s a Ben Hur quality to the racing at times as the stock cars duke it out.
Yet here were the drivers during the 2-hour fire break laughing and chatting like friends at a Friday night fish fry (that’s a Wisconsin thing again) only to be giving no quarter at 200 mph once racing got underway again.
Somehow, that’s what you’d expect from NASCAR drivers.
And wasn’t it great to see Kenseth’s number 17–with aid from fellow Ford driver Greg Biffle–hold off a charging Dale Jr on the last lap to win the 500? As they say in Wisconsin, you betcha.
Dale Jr, we’ll be cheering for you next week in Phoenix.
By the way, if you want to check in on the action, sign on to http://www.nascar.com/ where you can get a replay of the important events.
Related posts:
- Daytona 500 Broadcast Schedule Released
- Daytona 2011, Extreme Drafting
- Do you want to buy Bobby Allison’s 1969 Dodge Daytona stock car?
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