to coincide with the 10th anniversary, the networks trying to make a buck off of Iron Head’s death, and NA$CAR trying to make a fast buck off of anything and everything related to Iron Head. It reminds me of buzzards trying to pick the bones clean.
Just prior to the green flag dropping you could see the checkerboard pattern in the seats across from the Hollyweird Motel and the band stage. The blimp shots on Lap 159, which showed the back straight grandstands, and the Lap 161 blimp shot, which showed the dog leg grandstands, really showed how many fans were disguised as seats. Several sections on the dogleg grandstands had fans sitting in every other row which didn’t show from the ground level camera shots.
Martina McBride was doing well til she got near the end of the National Anthem and had to make it her own. Mr. Happy, Old Man Time, Newman, Menard, Shrubbery, Truex Jr, and Matt Kenseth all paid the proper respects to the flag. Most obvious in not paying the flag its proper respects to the flag, just like last season, was Hambone Hamlin. If Shrubbery can render our flag the proper respects, why can’t his teammate? And why can’t owner Joe Gibbs do something about it?
Obviously the 1:00 pm start time was out the window as the green flag wasn’t dropped til 1:30 pm. Remember, consistently breaking promises is a sign of drug abuse according to NA$CAR’s drug policy so Faux King Brian needs to be tested per NA$CAR‘s own policy for promising starts times at 1:00 pm, 3:00 pm, and 7:00 pm and the races not starting at those times. Mike Joy said they had “a packed house” and would say it again several times to try to reinforce the lie and yet we could clearly see the place wasn’t packed despite Focks best efforts to not show the grandstands.
On average, we got 6 commercials per 5 laps of green flag racing. The worst stretches of commercials came during the cautions. The one single worst stretch of commercials came at Lap 74 when they ran 8 commercials and missed Caution #7. The worst number of lead-in plugs, besides the single long Cup sponsor plugs was 4 lead-in plugs.
Because of the overwhelming need to show Focks commercial programming rather than what was advertised as the Daytona 500, 5 cautions were shown on replay rather than being shown live or, heavens forbids, interrupting the commercial programming to show the cautions as they were happening. Maybe it was called the Daytona 500 because it seemed like they ran 500 commercials between the commercials, lead-in plugs, sponsored graphics, and Jabber Jaws shilling and cheerleading for his and BZF’s favorite car make and drivers?
Anytime a tire went flat or blew out, Jabber Jaws and his faithful parrot Larry Mac were quick to make excuses for the tires. They failed to mention the tires that went flat by themselves during the Truck Series and Cup Lite races. Any time the younger of the Motormouth Brothers spun somebody on the track, both Jabber Jaws and his parrot were quick to make excuses and try to blame the car that got spun.
First race of the season and they’re already talking about the Chase for the Chumps when they threw up, literally, a graphic of last season’s play-off contenders. Focks obviously hasn’t gotten the message yet that the fans hate the Chase for the Chumps.
In what looked like a repeat of the Shootout, besides the Noah’s Ark 2x2 racing which reminds me of dogs sniffing each other’s backsides, Busch the Elder had Regan Smith pushing him into the lead on the first lap. On Lap 3, we had the renumbered 3 car leading for a bit before he was overtaken by the 22-78 duo. Lap #5 saw Shrubbery spin after the Human Shill spun him and brought out Caution #1. After the commercial programming was interrupted, Jabber Jaws was continuing to make excuses for his younger brother before all the audio and video material was presented and reviewed. Caution #2 came out when JJ Yeley’s engine went up in smoke. Jr’s day almost ended when Truex Jr nearly spun him because they didn’t get the word about the caution coming out. Caution #3 came out when Mr. Happy blew an engine. Jeff Gordon ran into the back of Robby Gordon which deserved a replay and was one of the few times Robby Gordon would be shown despite the fact that he led the race at one point.
Caution #4 came out when the Human Shill got into Roto-Reutimann’s car. Immediately excuses were offered up that Reutimann was loose. Apparently that was the official party line and he stuck with it. Caution #5 came out during the commercial programming when Robert Richardson Jr got into the wall. When they showed the replay, it seems his teammate Travis Kvapil got into him and caused him to hit the wall. One of the unusual things about this race was that Dave Blaney got the lead. The #36 car is normally a start & park. He’d run until he got taken out in an accident around Lap 74-78. Caution #6 came out for Brian Vickers car being dead on the track. On Lap 62, the latest gimmick to keep the Short Attention Span Crowd was introduced; The Heat Seeker.
Caution #7 came out while they were showing commercial programming. Kvapil had a blown front tire and immediately excuses were offered up stating it wasn’t the tires fault it blew. On Lap 80, Jr got the lead and as usual Jabber Jaws had to lead the cheerleading. On Lap 92, Mayor McCheese blew an engine. That meant 2 ECR powered cars were gone, both from engine failures. However, it didn’t result in a caution. Around Lap 99, Robby Gordon had gotten the lead which resulted in Mike Joy saying “Robby Gordon was leading” and that was it. None of the hype and hoopla of other drivers who led got. Lap 100 was our first mention of the season on Chase for the Chump drivers. During another run of commercial programming, Caution #8 came out. JPM spun out his teammate Jamie McMurray. During the commercial programming at Lap 115, they had an ad for the April Richmond race. That’s nearly as bad as the Martinsville ad just before they rolled out onto the track for the Shootout.
Jumping ahead to Caution #11, JPM spun Biffle and immediately Jabber Jaws was offering up an over-abundance of excuses. Jumping ahead to Caution 15 on Lap 196, Stewart got into Busch the Elder who in turn got into Regan Smith. This brought the race to a GWC finish. The first attempt didn’t go that well as an accident collected Truex Jr, Dale Jr, Newman, and Robby Gordon. Robby and Truex Jr’s damage wasn’t as bad as what Dale Jr got and they were able to continue for the 2 nd GWC attempt. David Ragan passed before the green flag was dropped on the first GWC attempt and was black flagged which ended any hopes he had of winning. On the second restart attempt, Trevor Bayne got a good push initially from Bobby Labonte and then Cousin/Crazy Carl took over and pushed Trevor to the finish line for the win.
During a lot of broadcasts over the last several years, we keep hearing how many races it’s been since Jeffy Boy won a race, or how many it’s been since Dale Jr won a race. It was 1976 when the Wood Brothers won their last race at Daytona and ten years since their last win. (2001 with Elliott Sadler). It took them 35 years to return to Victory Lane with a 20 year old driver in his 2nd ever Cup race to do what a former Cup champion was unable to do in the previous 2 years. Not only get the Wood Brothers a win but to win the biggest race of the season. Trevor Bayne’s name goes on the Harley Earl Trophy with the likes of Lee Petty, The King, and Iron Head and unfortunately his winning car will gather dust over the next year sitting in Daytona Beach.
On a side note, many thanks to Rocky Ragusa, George Bogart, and Betty Jones for lending a helping hand to Sam and Jo Ard with their donations.
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