Daytona Beach, Fla. – For the first time in more than two years, Jimmie Johnson is not among the top 10 in the Nextel Cup standings.
Johnson, the defending Daytona 500 winner and Nextel Cup champion, crashed out of Sunday’s Daytona 500. He caused a five-car accident with 36 laps to go in the season opener, losing control on the backstretch while running in the middle of a large pack.
“I thought I had it saved, and it snapped back to the right and into the fence,” Johnson said of his crash. “It was a hard hit.”
Johnson finished 39th, and he is 40th in the point standings. He had been among the top five after the past 105 races, the sixth-longest streak in NASCAR history.
“We certainly wanted to get off to a good start and not have a DNF coming out of the gate, but there is still a lot of racing left, and we have a very strong race team,” Johnson said.
Unofficially
Kevin Harvick’s unofficial margin of victory was .020 of a second. But that could change to “under caution.”
NASCAR released a statement saying the yellow flag came out on the last lap when Clint Bowyer’s car flipped on its roof – and before Harvick reached the finish line.
But if that’s the case, why wasn’t the race won under caution?
“When the 07 (Bowyer) went sideways, the yellow went out,” a NASCAR spokesman said. “At that time, the 29 (Harvick) was ahead of the 01 (Mark Martin).”
NASCAR used to allow lead drivers to race to the start/finish line under yellow. It now freezes the field immediately.
Thus, Harvick couldn’t have won by any other margin than under caution.
Stay tuned, because enhanced video replays and a meeting with the official flag waver likely will be needed to figure this out.
Different directions
Ricky Rudd and Jeff Gordon started second and 42nd, respectively, but Rudd was just inches ahead of Gordon when the first caution occurred on lap 16.
Perhaps Rudd, who did not race in Nextel Cup last year, needed some time to reacclimate himself to his surroundings. He lost 16 spots by the time Boris Said spun on the backstretch to draw the first yellow flag.
At the time, Gordon was in 20th, right on Rudd’s tail.
Gordon’s poor starting position was the result of failing technical inspection Thursday, after he captured one of the two 150-mile qualifying races.
Gordon and Rudd were running in the lead pack late, but were involved in separate accidents.
Apology accepted
Early on, Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch had the dominant cars. Stewart was eliminated on lap 152 when Busch, running second, ran into Stewart coming out of turn four.
“We had a good run on the 20 car,” Busch, who left the race on lap 166, said. “We just got bottled up. I made the first mistake. I apologize to the 20 car.”
Stewart blamed the wreck on himself.
“I mishandled in the corner, and it took off on me,” Stewart said.
Earlier, Stewart, who led 35 laps, battled back to take the lead after being sent to the back of the field for speeding on pit road.
“Impressive to go from the back to the front. I was really happy,” Stewart said.
Footnotes
Daytona officials announced a grandstand sellout of approximately 250,000 seats….MRN Radio announced its largest broadcast reach in race history, being on 512 American stations and several in Canada and Mexico. The American Forces Radio Network helped bring the race to limited areas in 176 countries.
