Burning List

BY Richard Biebrich
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

Sunday, February 14th 2010, 11:11 PM

DAYTONA BEACH – This was not exactly the way NASCAR wanted to get things started.

The finish was fine yesterday, with Jamie McMurray using a push from Dale Earnhardt Jr. to win the 52nd Daytona 500, a race that proved to be fast, racy and long.

“It’s a dream,” McMurray said as he tried but couldn’t hold back tears in victory lane.

And the start was great, with plenty of lead changes. it was the middle that seemed like a nightmare as the Sprint Cup season opener literally hit a pothole that caused two stoppages that totaled two hours and 15 minutes.

It started when John Andretti had contact with the wall between Turns 1 and 2 on Lap 117 thanks to a cut right-front tire caused by a pothole. some 100 minutes later a lot of hope for positive momentum to start the season was gone.

The first pothole stoppage shut down the event for 1 hour, 40 minutes and 45 seconds.

Pit lane looked like the Long Island Expressway as NASCAR parked the cars bumper to bumper while a track support crew worked to patch the holes with an epoxy mix.

“Why don’t they just put an orange cone over it and have us drive around it,” Earnhardt cracked to his crew over the radio.

The longer the delay went, NASCAR could only imagine how many viewers were clicking away to something else.

“It’s a combination of moisture and the cold temperatures,” NASCAR chairman Brian France said. “The normal solutions you normally use to patch the track are not working. We’re on the third different solution. Normally we would have had it resolved a lot quicker. That’s the problem.

“And we’re in the midst of probably our best Daytona 500 in a long time.”

The race went back to green on Lap 126 but stopped again at 159 when the pot hole reopened, resulting in another red flag for a delay of nearly 45 minutes.

And when things finally got going it seemed that the race didn’t want to finish.

First, a caution caused at Lap 195 set up a two-lap sprint when the field returned to green at 199. Except that then there was another caution that, thanks to another rule change made by NASCAR, added an extra lap. Except that after the restart there was yet another caution, adding another lap – with Kevin Harvick, who had made a mad dash to the bottom of the track just a moment before, in line for his second Daytona 500 win.

Harvick couldn’t hold on at the restart and McMurray used a push from Greg Biffle to take the lead. Biffle could then only watch as from out of nowhere Earnhardt suddenly drove past him, getting on McMurray’s bumper. As yet another crash broke out behind the two, McMurray took the checkered on Lap 208 to deliver owner Chip Ganassi his first Daytona 500 win. Earnhardt was second, with Biffle third.

“These three green-white checkers at the finish, it’s like a basketball game at the finish with all the timeouts, where you just want it to end,” Earnhardt said. “I guess we just have to deal with it.”

McMurray led only two laps, the fewest ever for a Daytona 500 winner, as the race produced 52 lead changes, the third most in track history, and 21 different leaders.

Jamie McMurray keeps Dale Earnhardt Jr. at bay to win the Daytona 500

Tags: dale earnhardt, daytona 500, john andretti, pothole, support crew