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Now that the afterglow of Ryan Newman's thrilling victory in the Daytona 500 is beginning to fade, it's time to get down to the serious business of real racing. The Daytona 500 was spectacular indeed -- it usually is -- but, as most real NASCAR fans know, it has little to do with what happens the rest of the season and has little bearing on the championship race. The 500 is almost like a separate event -- one that is so much bigger and so drastically different from NASCAR's other 35 races that you almost have to immediately disregard what happened as you settle in for the rest of the season. Just as the racing this week at California Speedway will pale in comparison to the breath-taking action at Daytona, so will the performances of drivers and teams. The top 10 at Daytona was filled with surprises, raising question after question as the second stop on a grueling, 10-month journey approaches. How many of those do you think will show in the top 10 again this week at California or next week at Las Vegas? About half? Maybe. Hendrick Motorsports had a bad day in the Daytona 500 Sunday. But guess what? It wasn't as bad as a year ago. If you think the Hendrick boys are off their game, a look back at the 2007 Daytona 500 shows a slow start in the first event doesn't mean much. Jimmie Johnson finished 39th one year ago and went on to win his second consecutive Cup title. Jeff Gordon was the organization's best finisher in 10th, but started the Chase on top of the points standings. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was the top Hendrick finisher Sunday in ninth. Gordon had suspension part failure. Johnson and Casey Mears were involved in accidents late in the race. It was a four-strikeout day for the Hendrick heavy hitters, but how things go at Daytona rarely is indicative of how the season will unfold. Hendrick's guys will win their share. One rotten outing doesn't change that fact. But other teams have gained ground, so last year's Hendrick domination appears unlikely. Females are moving in on racing, both on the track and in the grandstands. NASCAR marketers estimate their growing female fan base is already 30 million strong. It's easier than ever to find a t-shirt to support your favorite driver that's pink and covered in rhinestones, and rightly so.
An ESPN poll recently showed that 42 percent of all race fans are now female. Nielsen media research looked at how many women watched racing on TV back in 2003 and found that more women watched NASCAR on network TV than Major League Baseball or the NFL. Jessica Helberg is giving female NASCAR fans a fresh, fast driver to cheer for. Helberg is currently the only female competing in NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program. The 19-year-old blonde from Rohnert Park, California is heading into her second season with the Drive for Diversity program. Helberg, a third generation driver, started racing dirt karts when she was just 13 years old. Helberg moved from dirt karts to sprint cars in 2005 and just last year took on racing full-bodied stock cars.
Penske's NASCAR Sprint Cup team, which has largely hovered in the background the last two years while Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing and other teams stole most of NASCAR's headlines, broke quickly from the gate in Sunday's Daytona 500. Ryan Newman won the coveted race with a helpful push from teammate Kurt Busch, giving Penske's Dodges a 1-2 finish and the longtime motor sports owner his first win at Daytona International Speedway after three decades of trying. And Penske's newest stock-car driver, former open-wheel racer Sam Hornish Jr., showed surprising strength in his Daytona debut in a Cup car, finishing 15th in the 43-car field after being in the top-10 at one point. Hornish drove for Penske's IndyCar Series team, winning one of Penske's 14 Indianapolis 500 victories and the series championship three times. There are times when Jimmie Johnson sits bolt upright in the night and worries that he might never win again. Across town or across the motor-coach lot at a NASCAR track, Chad Knaus, his crew chief, often gets the same feeling. "Yes, I have a fear of failure," says Johnson, the two-time and defending Cup champion and at least the even-money favorite to repeat this season. "At times, I've been afraid of falling flat on my face and never running well again. "See, I've never peaked in any series until now. I've always had great opportunities; then I've taken a long time and struggled to learn what I was doing. Before I got really good at one level, there'd be another opportunity, another step up. I'd take a long time and struggle to learn that series, too. Then I'd move on to something else. I've never had real success anywhere until now. And yeah, the fear of suddenly not doing well is always there. It never goes away." The story goes that American Revolutionary War patriot Paul Revere rode through the New England countryside shouting: "The British are coming, the British are coming" to warn about enemy troop movements. More than two centuries later, American stock-car racing fans - a hardy breed of patriots themselves - are issuing a call to arms of their own: "The French-Canadians are coming, the French-Canadians are coming." At least, that was the tack taken this past week by a worried Ohio sports columnist on the eve of stock car racing's Super Bowl, today's season-opening Daytona 500 NASCAR spectacle in Daytona Beach, Fla. (2 p.m., TSN, FOX). Like many among the legions of diehard fans that make up NASCAR Nation, Mark Mackey wonders whether the growing invasion of foreign-born drivers - two of them from Quebec - will accelerate the popular race car circuit's slow move away from its good-ol'-boy Southern roots. Jacques Villeneueve and Patrick Carpentier didn't qualify for this weekend's historic 50th Daytona 500, but along with drivers from Europe and Latin America they have become the latest targets of NASCAR traditionalists unhappy with the controversial changes over the past few years. Ryan Newman shocked the racing world today by winning his first Daytona 500. Newman came out of nowhere to pass Tony Stewart on the final lap of the 50th installment of The Great American Race. Sunday's 2008 Daytona 500 victory was Newman's first victory in 81 races. Newman's teammate Kurt Busch came in second. Newman also made history for his car owner Roger Penske, this was the first restrictor plate race ever won by a Penske Racing Driver. The only one happier than Ryan Newman and Roger Penske are NASCAR bettors. Oddsmakers at online sports book Bodog had set Daytona 500 betting odds on Newman at 30/1. Bettors who backed Newman were paid a whopping $3000 for every $100 wagered on Newman. The story of the day appeared to by Joe Gibbs racing driver Kyle Busch. Busch led the most laps of any driver in the 2008 Daytona 500 but he failed to lead the lap that counted. Kyle Busch had without question the fastest car for this year's 50th Daytona 500 but in the end he failed to secure the drafting help needed to propel him to victory. Lap length: 2.5 miles DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Kyle Busch ran more laps than anyone during Speedweeks. He led a bunch of them, too. Just not the ones that really mattered. Busch finished fourth in the Daytona 500 on Sunday, ending a hectic weekend that also included strong showings in the Craftsman Truck Series and the Nationwide Series. Busch was second in both of those. He was considerably better in the big one, leading a race-high 86 laps and dominating most of the afternoon. But several late cautions kept the field bunched together, and Penske Racing teammates Ryan Newman and Kurt Busch hooked up to prevent Busch from getting to Victory Lane. "Just frustrating to come home fourth," Busch said. "But that's part of the Daytona 500 when you run as good as we had all day long. Those guys couldn't keep up with us, but there were all those cautions at the end that propelled them forward enough in order to get them ahead." KERRY THARP: We'll go ahead and roll into our post race press conference. We have our third place finisher, that's Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota. Your thoughts? TONY STEWART: Disappointed, obviously. It would be a lie to come in here and say I was happy about, you know, going from first to third on the last lap of the Daytona 500. I just made the wrong decision on the backstretch. Tried to get down in front of Kyle. Thought I would get a push down there, and the top line, the 12 or the 2 got glued to the 12. When you do that, I mean, I don't know if I could have stopped them anyway, even if I would have changed lanes. I'd say most likely we would have ended up like a bunch of other guys: wrecked.
- In a year that celebrates a Washington driver's win as among the most dramatic Daytona 500s of all time (Derrike Cope over Dale Earnhardt in 1990), two other Washingtonians nearly pulled off another victory. Kasey Kahne of Enumclaw led his first lap in the event, ran among the top five most of the afternoon and ultimately finished seventh after a mad, last-lap shuffle. It equaled his best showing here from last year. Greg Biffle of Vancouver led three times for seven laps and finished 10th -- a career best in this race. "It's a strong day for us today and hopefully it is like that all year long," said Kahne, who has new sponsor Budweiser aboard his No. 9 Dodge and is hoping to snap a year-long winless streak. Biffle, a former Daytona 500 polesitter, was similarly pleased with the day. The evolution of the Daytona 500 changed dramatically the first season the "stock" cars rolled off the beach and onto the 2.5-mile, 31-degree banked superspeedway in 1959. But how will the next half-century unfold? Will the drivers continue to battle on the weathered track where speeds reached such extreme and dangerous heights that NASCAR decided to "restrict" the air taken into the engines in 1987 to slow the cars down? Or will aerospace engineers enter into the equation and the Car of Today become the podrace of tomorrow? "In the past 10 or 15 years, you see how technology has taken off with the Internet and I look at that," says Bobby Labonte, who ran his first 500 in 1993. "Do you see the crowd today? Hypothetically speaking, it's a now crowd. Everybody wants it now. In 50 years, will there be anybody in the stands at all? Will they be watching it on video or whatever and you sit there and watch it. Maybe you actually drive from your home and don't even go to the racetrack. Who knows? DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Rusty Wallace crossed the finish line, drove into the garage area and found his wife waiting. It was unusual for her to be there. But this was a trip she had to make. Wallace needed extra support after finishing 10th in the 2005 Daytona 500 - his 23rd and final attempt at winning NASCAR's premier race. "I had one last shot to win the 500, and when I didn't get it done, it was probably the quietest time in my life," Wallace said. "It was definitely a disappointment in my life. "It was a void. It was something I wish I could have said I had done." He's not the only one to go his entire career without winning the big one. Ricky Rudd, Terry Labonte, Mark Martin and many more have endured close calls, multi-car crashes, blown engines, broken parts, tire failure, pit-road problems and just about every other kind of turmoil imaginable at Daytona International Speedway. If Dale Earnhardt Jr. is going to win the Daytona 500, it looks like he's got a sizeable horsepower disadvantage to overcome, judging from NASCAR's post-150s chassis-dyno tests, which showed Toyota's Tony Stewart had at least a 15 horsepower edge at his rear wheels over Chevy's Earnhardt in Thursday's twin races. And Richard Childress' Chevy engines were about 30 horsepower off the Toyotas, which is some concern in both the Childress camp and with GM officials. NASCAR didn't post any official numbers, but Stewart's engine - built by Mark Cronquist, head of Joe Gibbs' motor shop - pulled around 462 to 464 effective horsepower, according to those familiar with the results. That's about 15 horsepower more than Earnhardt had and about 30 horsepower more than Chevy's Kevin Harvick. "We've got some work to do," was all Clint Bowyer, Harvick's teammate at Childress', would say. Ford's Doug Yates, the veteran engine builder and now car owner, had expressed worries about the powerful Toyota engines during January testing. However yesterday Yates was in a better mood: "From Talladega till now, we've made great gains, and we're close. But I didn't need a chassis dyno to know who has the best engine here. Colombia's Juan Pablo Montoya starts 15th. Scotland's Dario Franchitti goes off 40th. Neither is a likely winner of the 50th version of the Great American Race, although on the occasions in which the Daytona 500 turns into a crash fest, anything is possible. The likely foreign winner isn't a driver. We have now seen that, instead, it is a car. Denny Hamlin won Thursday's second Twin 150 qualifying race in a Toyota. Todd Bodine won Friday's Craftsman Truck Series race in a Toyota. Tony Stewart won Saturday's Nationwide (formerly Busch) Series race in a Toyota. In today's Daytona 500, Michael Waltrip starts in the front row in a Toyota. Hamlin and Stewart are directly behind in their Gibbs Racing machines in Rows 2 and 3. Change" may be the buzzword among Democrats this election cycle, but as NASCAR kicks off its 2008 season with Sunday's Daytona 500, the term is virtually taboo. No sport grew faster than stock-car racing in the 1990s. And under third-generation CEO Brian France, NASCAR revved up efforts to woo new fans even more aggressively in recent years. It revamped its championship formula, changed title sponsors, redesigned its racecar and tried updating its image. But after two consecutive years of declining TV ratings, France conceded last month that it's time NASCAR put the brakes on change and tried to reclaim its bond with core fans. "We're getting back to the basics," said France, 45. "Change is good to a certain point, but we've got all the change we think the sport can stand and needs." France stopped short of conceding that NASCAR had erred in its rush to win over casual sports fans -- whether by delaying the traditional 1 p.m. starting time of races to late afternoon to capture West Coast viewers or by building bistros and martini bars in once-raucous infields. But many insiders believe the effort simply alienated longtime fans in the process. DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - NASCAR has a sizzlin' new topic racing through the garage. It has nothing to do with fighting, cheating or Dale Jr. What will actress Ashley Judd wear to the Daytona 500 on Sunday? Judd, the wife of reigning IndyCar Series champion and rookie NASCAR driver Dario Franchitti, was hard to miss last week at Daytona International Speedway in a low-cut, black dress adorned with colourful tulips, high heels, black sunglasses and a large, floppy black hat. It was a drastic departure from "NASCAR style" - a term some would call an oxymoron. Then again, it was considerably less revealing than Judd's rain-soaked number at Franchitti's Indianapolis 500 victory last year. "It's not a big deal," NASCAR said Saturday. "We're confident there won't be an issue." For Franchitti's car owner, Chip Ganassi, the subject of Judd's wardrobe is considered one of the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Mimicking Hendrick Motorsports' teamwork strategy, Tony Stewart and Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch finished 1-2 Saturday in the season-opening Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway. Sunday's Daytona 500 is sure to feature even more teamwork. "We worked with each other the whole race. That's something that, you know, we've learned that from the Hendrick guys," Stewart said. "And it just shows if you get two of these guys to work with each other, Kyle and I can. I think Kyle and I could have stayed up front all day no matter how many guys challenged." Next up: Sunday's Daytona 500, a race expected to be a showdown between the powerful Hendrick Chevrolets and Gibbs Racing, which switched from the GM brand to Toyotas over the winter. Toyota took the top two spots Saturday, a day after getting the top four spots in the truck race. Sunday, it will be Stewart, Busch and Denny Hamlin against Hendrick's all-star cast of Dale Earnhardt Jr., two-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon and Casey Mears. Earnhardt, who finished third Saturday, Johnson and Gordon are all former Daytona 500 winners. Gibbs' drivers still are looking for that first win in NASCAR's biggest event. 2008 Unofficial Race Results : Camping World 300 presented by Chevrolet Here we go. Just a mere three months after the 2007 Sprint Cup season ended, we're ready to go with the 2008 installment. We've got drivers in new rides, we have teams with new manufacturers and we have a whole new crop of open-wheel drivers trying to make a name for themselves in NASCAR. Pretty exciting, eh? Well, remember that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Hooray! A cliché! (And additional points for rhyming). Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart can't stay off each other on the track, and Hendrick is still, for lack of a better term, good. But 2008 is a whole new year, and as we move into the season's biggest race, we'll have a 43-way tie for first place in the points as the green flag waves for the first time. NASCAR is the only sport that starts its season with the most important event. The winner of this race will take the points lead to California, but will also be able to put his name up alongside the legends of the sport. Everyone and their mother (including my mother) is making their picks for the Great American Race, but most of them will pick a winner based on practice speeds, momentum or just a gut feeling. Truck season opener at Daytona International Speedway. The Toyota trucks were tough, and swept the top four positions in the NASCAR Craftsman truck series 2008 season opener at Daytona International Speedway. Overall, Todd Bodine won Friday night in the No. 30 Lumber Liquidators Tundra by just a truck length after 250 miles of racing. Bodine's victory is the 13th of his NCTS career and his first-ever NASCAR victory at Daytona. His victory came in the same truck he won in last October at Talladega Superspeedway. For Toyota, this is the second-consecutive NCTS win for the manufacturer at Daytona. Last year, Jack Sprague won the event for the brand. The win was the 39th win for Toyota in the Truck Series since the start of the 2004 season. NASCAR Sprint Cup regular Kyle Busch finished second to Bodine in his No. 51 NOS Energy Drink Toyota. Johnny Benson and his Toyota Certified Used Vehicles Toyota was third and fell just short of beating Busch to the finish line. David Starr finished off the Toyota sweep of the top four positions in his Red Horse Racing Toyota. Rounding out the top five was the no. 14 Power Stroke Diesel by Intl. Ford driven by Rick Crawford. Feb. 22, 1959, The First Daytona 500: Fledgling NASCAR's first "500-Mile International Sweepstakes'' drew 41,000 to the brand-new Daytona International Speedway, the biggest and grandest superspeedway this side of Indianapolis. A field of 59 cars took the green flag for the start, vying for a then-record purse that totaled $67,760. The race was the first of many close, dramatic finishes in what has become the Super Bowl of stock car racing. It ended in a three-way photo finish among Lee Petty, Johnny Beauchamp and Joe Weatherly. NASCAR officials immediately declared Beauchamp the winner, and he celebrated in Victory Circle. But Petty was sure he had won and stuck around for three days, lobbying NASCAR and speedway officials. Finally, after reviewing still photos and newsreel footage of the finish, NASCAR decided Petty had won by about 2 feet and awarded him the victory. Bigger, better and a whole lot faster. That's what Bill France Sr. wanted for NASCAR and his new track - a massive 2.5-mile, high-banked oval that dwarfed the other circuits yet underwhelmed drivers. "Growing up on a half-mile speedway, it was so off that I don't think anybody could grasp that you could put on a good race here," said Junior Johnson, one of NASCAR's greatest drivers. Instead, what many feared would be a big Daytona dud became "The Great American Race" and the site of the sport's greatest lore. Sunday marks the 50th edition of the Daytona 500, where heartache, occasional four-wide racing and the almost inevitable dramatic finish have transfixed racing fans. "If you look at it, what makes Daytona Daytona is Junior Johnson, Fireball Roberts, Bill France Sr., Dale Earnhardt Sr., Richard Petty," said Kyle Petty, whose grandfather, Lee, won the inaugural 1959 Daytona 500. "It's the guys who have won here, it's the history that's here." Lucky for Kurt Busch, Tony Stewart wasn't wearing any one of his Cup championship rings when he allegedly threw a punch at Busch inside the NASCAR hauler in the midst of their latest feud. Fact or fiction, the thought of taking a punch from a piece of NASCAR championship bling would make the toughest man wince. The rings that grace the fingers of past champions, Stewart and Busch both, are big. And at the Daytona International Speedway, the rings are getting bigger. While the New York Giants are still waiting for their Super Bowl rings to be made, NASCAR's Super Bowl rings are ready to go. To signify the magnitude the 50th running of the Daytona 500 holds, Herff Jones, the same company who made the Indianapolis Colts' Super Bowl ring, increased the size of the Daytona 500 championship ring this year and added a bunch of bling. The Friday version of ESPN2's NASCAR Now was facing some heavy competition from SPEED. That network had been on the air almost daily with NASCAR programming since the first testing dates in Daytona. Now, on the eve of all three Daytona races, NASCAR Now was up against the SPEED's NASCAR Live hosted by the popular John Roberts. This time, ESPN had a response. The theme of that response was change. What they changed...was everything. The result was the best episode of NASCAR Now since the program began last February. Hands down, ESPN has made a statement that this season they making a commitment to NASCAR. First off, this show was live on ESPN2. Instead of the Connecticut studios, every ESPN announcer on the program was located at the race track. Instead of a single anchor with a video screen, the show took residence in the million dollar ESPN Pit Studio with the speedway visible behind it. |
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