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Daytona 500 a letdown
Michigan
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in Sports Talk
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - It's never good when a race ends with fewer checkered flags than a meatball sub.
The sandwich came Sunday with two little toothpick flags. Thirteen-year-old Alex Parks stuck them in his cap and took a bite.
"We would have liked to have seen it finish," said his mother, Debbie.
She meant the race, not the sandwich.
The Daytona 500 was won by the rain. Actually, Matt Kenseth was fortunate enough to be leading when racing stopped at 6:33 p.m.
Seventeen minutes later, officials called the race. Elliott Sadler spoke on behalf of about 200,000 fans.
"It's just very hard to swallow," he said.
Especially after the Day of Thunder that preceded the red flag.
There was high drama and icy feelings. And that was just when two of Nicole Kidman's husbands showed up at the drivers meeting.
Kidman-ex Tom Cruise was on hand to drive a pace car. Kidman-current Keith Urban was there to sing. The two stars didn't trade any paint, as they say around the track.
Fact is, Cruise and Urban didn't even get the most attention. Not with Florida's leading icon in attendance.
In what will surely come as news to Gators fans, Tim Tebow could not wave his hand and make the rain go away.
It was left to mere NASCAR mortals to do the dirty work and end the festivities after 380 miles.
"It's easy to second-guess something until you have to be up there making those decisions," runner-up Kevin Harvick said.
Here's the easy question, then: Should the Great American Race be decided by the team with the best weatherman?
Pit chiefs and fans kept an eye on the radar and the front moving east across Florida.
Who caused crash?
If they were too transfixed, they missed a nice tete-a-tete between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brian Vickers.
Earnhardt was roaring mad after being penalized a lap for stopping over his pit line during a caution flag. When racing resumed, he tore down the backstretch.
Vickers moved to the left to block him, only to be spun into the pack by Earnhardt. The collateral damage included Kyle Busch, who had the hottest car on the track.
"It's kind of sad to wreck somebody intentionally," Vickers said.
Earnhardt blamed the carnage on Vickers.
He also mentioned over his radio that if Vickers had a problem, he would be happy to settle things behind the garage after the race.
It never came to that, perhaps because the race ended before anybody knew it. Everybody was anticipating the usual mad Daytona dash in the final laps. But the mist was turning to rain, and it's hard to go 200 mph on slick asphalt.
Kenseth, one of the more reserved drivers on the circuit, had played it cool for the first 151 laps. He eased past Sadler on the backstretch and led at the start-finish line.
Then came the rally cry of 2009.
"Rain, rain, rain," Kenseth radioed his crew chief.
It was more like sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle.
That was enough to make NASCAR officials position themselves for a lot of second-guessing.
A rain-interrupted race in California last year lasted 21 hours.
Nobody wanted 200,000 hung-over, sleep-deprived fans hitting Interstates 95 and 4 at noon today.
So the soggy suspense lasted 15 minutes.
It ended with an announcement, not a checkered flag.
Empty feeling
Kenseth quickly thanked God and five sponsors. He should have included The Weather Channel.
"Thanks to all the fans who came out to watch us," Kenseth said.
That included Cruise, Kidman and the Parks family. It had come all the way from North Branch, Minn.
All Alex could do was sit under an umbrella and eat that meatball sub.
No matter how many bites he took, he left Daytona with an empty feeling.
The sandwich came Sunday with two little toothpick flags. Thirteen-year-old Alex Parks stuck them in his cap and took a bite.
"We would have liked to have seen it finish," said his mother, Debbie.
She meant the race, not the sandwich.
The Daytona 500 was won by the rain. Actually, Matt Kenseth was fortunate enough to be leading when racing stopped at 6:33 p.m.
Seventeen minutes later, officials called the race. Elliott Sadler spoke on behalf of about 200,000 fans.
"It's just very hard to swallow," he said.
Especially after the Day of Thunder that preceded the red flag.
There was high drama and icy feelings. And that was just when two of Nicole Kidman's husbands showed up at the drivers meeting.
Kidman-ex Tom Cruise was on hand to drive a pace car. Kidman-current Keith Urban was there to sing. The two stars didn't trade any paint, as they say around the track.
Fact is, Cruise and Urban didn't even get the most attention. Not with Florida's leading icon in attendance.
In what will surely come as news to Gators fans, Tim Tebow could not wave his hand and make the rain go away.
It was left to mere NASCAR mortals to do the dirty work and end the festivities after 380 miles.
"It's easy to second-guess something until you have to be up there making those decisions," runner-up Kevin Harvick said.
Here's the easy question, then: Should the Great American Race be decided by the team with the best weatherman?
Pit chiefs and fans kept an eye on the radar and the front moving east across Florida.
Who caused crash?
If they were too transfixed, they missed a nice tete-a-tete between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brian Vickers.
Earnhardt was roaring mad after being penalized a lap for stopping over his pit line during a caution flag. When racing resumed, he tore down the backstretch.
Vickers moved to the left to block him, only to be spun into the pack by Earnhardt. The collateral damage included Kyle Busch, who had the hottest car on the track.
"It's kind of sad to wreck somebody intentionally," Vickers said.
Earnhardt blamed the carnage on Vickers.
He also mentioned over his radio that if Vickers had a problem, he would be happy to settle things behind the garage after the race.
It never came to that, perhaps because the race ended before anybody knew it. Everybody was anticipating the usual mad Daytona dash in the final laps. But the mist was turning to rain, and it's hard to go 200 mph on slick asphalt.
Kenseth, one of the more reserved drivers on the circuit, had played it cool for the first 151 laps. He eased past Sadler on the backstretch and led at the start-finish line.
Then came the rally cry of 2009.
"Rain, rain, rain," Kenseth radioed his crew chief.
It was more like sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle.
That was enough to make NASCAR officials position themselves for a lot of second-guessing.
A rain-interrupted race in California last year lasted 21 hours.
Nobody wanted 200,000 hung-over, sleep-deprived fans hitting Interstates 95 and 4 at noon today.
So the soggy suspense lasted 15 minutes.
It ended with an announcement, not a checkered flag.
Empty feeling
Kenseth quickly thanked God and five sponsors. He should have included The Weather Channel.
"Thanks to all the fans who came out to watch us," Kenseth said.
That included Cruise, Kidman and the Parks family. It had come all the way from North Branch, Minn.
All Alex could do was sit under an umbrella and eat that meatball sub.
No matter how many bites he took, he left Daytona with an empty feeling.
0
Comments
FOX needed a lead in to it's Sunday night schedule, so it now begins at 3:30.
The FOX suits in NY have no idea about FL weather, and the idiots running NASCAR certainly cannot be expected to understand without the benefit of a divining rod held by a Granny Clampett look alike.
Late afternoon-early evening showers in FL? Who would have thought?
FOX surely had a hand in the quick call. They wanted to make King of the Hill at 7PM. They had about 10 minutes for post race interviews.
Couldn't restart the race until about 11PM? Wait until later in the season, you'll see it happen at other tracks.
<< <i>Ill be glad when its off tv >>
LOL, That will never happen.
<< <i>too bad 1 hour after the race was called it quit raining. >>
It was just reported on ESPN and CNN that the rain didnt stop until 2:00 A.M. I dont think there was anyway they could have gotten that race in last night, but it sure would have been nice if they suspended the race and resumed that last 48 laps this AM.
Really? For all intents and purposes, hockey is pretty much off of TV. Of course, NASCAR will probably always be televised, but the day WILL come where it is relagated to a cable station that most people can't find on the dial...just like hockey is now.
<< <i>
<< <i>too bad 1 hour after the race was called it quit raining. >>
It was just reported on ESPN and CNN that the rain didnt stop until 2:00 A.M. I dont think there was anyway they could have gotten that race in last night, but it sure would have been nice if they suspended the race and resumed that last 48 laps this AM. >>
The rain did not last until 2 am,I can tell you that.
Living about 5-6 minutes from the track,when I left the tattoo shop
at 10:40,it was not raining.It never rained the rest of the night.
Needs'
1972 Football-9's high#'s
1965 Football-8's
1958 Topps FB-7-8
<< <i>The rain did not last until 2 am,I can tell you that.
Living about 5-6 minutes from the track,when I left the tattoo shop
at 10:40,it was not raining.It never rained the rest of the night. >>
Agreed, although conditions may not have been suitable for racing.
The official observations from the National Weather Service at Daytona Beach International Airport (next to the track for those not familiar) shows "mist" from 9PM on, with one entry for light rain at 3AM. Four hundredths of an inch in total precip for the 24 hour period beginning Sunday morning.
KDAB Obs
Either way if the race had been started earlier as in previous years they would have finished.
As for running the remaining laps today, I believe they had run enough laps to make it official.
NASCAR wants people to talk about them in the same vein as the NFL, MLB, etc. but ending your biggest race after 20 minutes was minor league comedy. If they had any sense, they would've pushed up the start of the race and moved the pre-race crap to after the race. They knew weather was coming.
Who cares if they end any of the other races early, but for the biggest race they run it should go the full 500 miles. They should run it over 4 days if necessary.
Ron
Buying Vintage, all sports.
Buying Woody Hayes, Les Horvath, Vic Janowicz, and Jesse Owens autographed items
Personally I used to be a fan of NASCAR, but have slowly forgotten about most of the sport since they went to the lame chase format. But they should have tried harder to finish the race. But again, baseball does the same thing. But in support of baseball, they usually wait longer than 20 minutes before they decide to cancel the finish.