Let the bickering begin.
02/16/2009
Vicker's vs. Dale Jr.
Daytona 500 ends in the rain, Matt Kenseth only led one lap: the last one in a rain shortened race of 380 miles. Dale Jr. and Vickers got together and wrecked 9 cars in the process. Vickers’ says Jr. needed a caution, Jr. says Vickers didn’t need to block him. My take: Jr. expects everyone to get out of his way, Vickers didn’t play by Dale’s rule and there are a lot of angry drivers that will be trading paint later in the season.
Too bad the race ended on a caution: I would have loved to see if anyone else could have drafted up to the front. Poor Joey Logano: his first 500 and he ends up hard into the wall on lap 80. Jeremy Mayfield and Tommy Baldwin’s team got into the race, but didn’t have a great showing with a 40th place finish. I was hoping that Mark Martin could have won: he looked like a contender until a late pit stop put further back in the pack.
With the rain shortened race, there wasn’t an opportunity to see how the “short track” restarts in the last 20 laps will work. That means double file by position instead of the lap cars on the inside lane. That was basically the reason Jr. and Vickers crashed the pack. If they were at the back of the pack, 9 cars wouldn’t have been involved in their argument for real estate.
2/18 Update: its a single file restart for the last 20 laps of the race, not the short track double file. My bad: I didn't double check. It still would have put Vickers and Jr. in the back of the pack....
