We waited all winter for this? While most of the country continues to reel with winters fury, millions of NASCAR fans were anxious to see some live racing from Daytona Saturday night. The Sprint Unlimited features those drivers who won pole positions during last season along with past winners of the Unlimited. Most of the sports greatest stars including Johnson, Gordon, Harvick, the Busch brothers and Kenseth were on hand. Even Tony Stewart, who was racing for the first time since suffering a severe left fracture while racing Sprint cars last season, was on the track.
NASCAR fans were anxious to see how the new and improved Generation 6 cars performed on the high bank superspeedway. Would NASCAR’s improvements rid these restrictor plate races of the boring single file racing which we saw all to often last season at the big tracks of Daytona and Talladega?
Excitement filled the air, the green flag flew, and if you blinked your eyes you missed it. Matt Kenseth looking to move to the inside lane failed to notice the #22 car driven by Joey Logano, who was already there. The result? Nine of the best cars were taken out of the race before the first mandatory caution flag waved. Drivers like Gordon, Patrick, Kurt Busch and Stewart all had their night ended by the careless move of the normally reliable driver Kenseth.
The two-time Daytona 500 Champion was quick to admit his guilt after the accident. “It appears I cut Joey off and didn’t leave him enough room.”
In spectacular fashion the cars were quickly gathered up with Gordon’s car actually getting airborne slightly, landing on top of Kurt Busch’s hood. Ricky Stenhouse Jr, Danica Patrick’s boyfriend, had the misfortune of running into her car, ending her night as well. Twitter lit up with various boyfriend/girlfriend jokes but the best line of the night may have come from Stenhouse himself.
Stenhouse could not see and almost avoided further contact but in the end hit Patrick’s car hard. He had no idea who he had hit until he was in the infield and he had this to say. “I couldn’t see and then all of a sudden, I drilled her.”
Fans of Dale Earnhardt Jr. were pleased that he had avoided the big one and seemed poised to bring his car home with a great finish, until he got tangled up with Marcos Ambrose. Ambrose was pushing Earnhardt from behind when he hooked him and Juniors car slid up into the wall ending his night. On the caution lap Junior gave Ambrose’s car a couple little “love taps” to indicate his frustration. After the race Junior was quick to say he was not mad at Ambrose.
So the night saw Patrick calling it a bummer but quickly forgiving Stenhouse. Tony Stewart and the rest of the drivers avoided injury. For a brief time the cars looked racey. The Pace Car catching fire. And oh yeah, Denny Hamlin won.
Hamlin is coming off just a miserable injury-plagued season. Last night he announced to the world that he’s back. Although there were only eight cars left standing at the end, he put himself in a position to win and pulled out his second Sprint Unlimited victory.
It wasn’t what most fans had hoped to see, but it was racing and it sure as heck beat shoveling snow. After a long cold winter it finally felt a little like spring.
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