Jr. gets his first Daytona 500 win.
02/16/2004
Congratulations to Dale Earnhardt Jr. on his win at the 500. It was a long race yesterday and he managed to get in front to Tony Stewart for the last 20 laps of the race. We all know it is only the last lap that counts.
It was a long race for me yesterday as all of my drivers except Dale Jarrett were out of the race long before the checkered flag fell. Mark Martin blew an engine early in the race; you could see the disappointment on his face as he faced the pit reporters. Mark managed to keep the car on the track and not take anyone else out when he couldn’t see out the window of his car due to smoke. Robby Gordon and Scott Riggs got caught up in the Michael Waltrip wreck. No, the wreck wasn’t exactly caused by Michael this time but that was the clip shown most on the replays. The trouble started when Johnny Sauter, Brian Vickers and Michael Waltrip were trying to go 3 wide into turn 2. Sauter got loose and off went the melee. Twelve cars were involved in the spinning, twisting, turning and flipping. The safety crews managed to get Waltrip out of the car after they flipped it back on to its wheels. Michael is a big guy and the roof hatch was totaled in the flips.
Dale Jarrett was in the second pack of cars for the last part of the race, they just couldn’t catch up to the leaders for the push to the finish. Dale ended up with a 10th place finish.
Today is the Hershey Kisses 300. It starts at 10:00 a.m. today, I have to deal with track pass today as I don’t think I can find a bar open that early this morning to watch the TV broadcast. Go Robby, he starts 2nd to Jr. for the restart.
