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Rating the Race: Daytona 500

by Tim Zaegel on February 17th, 2008

After all the hype, all the anticipation, and all the guessing that led us up to the drop of the green flag for the 50th running of the Daytona 500, laps 20 through 150 nearly put me to sleep. The race started with Michael Waltrip jumping out in front of defending series champion Jimmie Johnson to lead the first lap, and what ensued afterwards was purely shocking as the Toyota boys pulled together to lead 65 of the first 70 laps amongst four of their drivers (Waltrip, Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin, & Kyle Busch). After all the shuffling around through the first 20 laps, though, the race became rather uneventful as most drivers appeared content with their place in line and the only movement was really just a few drivers trying to figure out what the track was doing.

The first caution of the day waved around lap 80 for debris, and the second came out on lap 151 – again for debris … nothing too exciting. What did cause a buzz, however, was Jeff Gordon heading to the garage with just 46 laps to go due to suspension failures. The green came back out and things appeared rather calm, but then another caution came out on lap 261 when David Ragan got pushed up the track and ran into the front of teammate Matt Kenseth, ending what had been to that point a good day for both drivers.

In a surprise move, Dale Earnhardt Jr remained on the track to lead at lap 262, but would later be passed by Kasey Kahne with only 32 laps remaining. Earnhardt then made it back to the front with the help of his restrictor plate buddy Tony Stewart, and the two of them then battled back-and-forth for the lead for several laps until another late-race caution came out after Johnson spun on the track and collected Martin Truex Jr in the process. The green flag dropped again with 21 laps to go, but four laps later Clint Bowyer took a spill to bring out the yellow once again.

So, there we are with 13 laps remaining and yet another green flag waives. 2 laps later Kevin Harvick got into the back of Dave Blaney. Blaney hit the wall and then picked up Mark Martin, and yet another caution flag came out. With 8 laps to go the field was all geared up to make a run to the checkers. With Casey Mars running on the low-side, it looked like he was moving up the track to pull Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch to the front and run with them. However, Mears’ timing was off, and instead he was accidentally clipped by a helpless Stewart, and that sent Mears spinning and brought out the final caution of the day.

The final green flag of the day dropped with three laps left. Stewart pulled out to the lead with Ryan Newman following closely behind. Unfortunately for Stewart, though, Newman had his Penske teammate Kurt Busch directly behind him. The three ran on the high side of the track while Stewart’s Gibbs teammate Kyle Busch led the no. 9 of Kasey Kahne on the bottom. Stewart held on until he took the white flag signaling the final lap of the race as he tried to block both lines. Tony finally took a dip to the bottom line to try and hook up with Kyle and flex that Toyota muscle we’ve talked so much about during the Speedweeks and just muscle their way past the Penske duo. But, the push that Newman got from Busch after Stewart fell out of that line proved to just be too much, and Kurt pushed Newman all the way to the finish.

The victory for Newman was his first since September 18, 2005 when he won the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire. It was also the first-ever restrictor plate victory for Penske Racing and also the first time in the organization’s illustrious history that they’ve ever finished a race in both 1st and 2nd. For Kurt Busch, it was a great way to turn his momentum around in a positive direction after a horrid speedweeks experience. For Tony Stewart, it was utter disappointment as he watched his Daytona 500 dreams pass before him yet again.

Grades (on a 100 point scale):

The Race: 92%
The Drama: 70%
Coverage: 80%
Pre-Race Ceremonies: 75%

Overall Grade: 83.5%
*Note – the Race accounts for 50% of score; Coverage & Drama is 20% each; Pre-Race is 10%

Race Results (credit nascar.com):