Daytona 500

Anybody just watch the Daytona 500? Only recently just got Sky on my TV and saw it was on so I thought I'd give it a go and was pleasantly surprised! Good close racing, overtaking, controversy, rain and one hell of a big smash! Congrats to the winner as well did good starting last, avoiding the mayhem and coming through to score his first win at many attempts.

Discuss

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Circuit Thermalito

Liverpool Waterfront Circuit (WIP)

Good race, ruined by rain. AJ 3rd is an awesome result.

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The only lap Kenseth led turned out to be an important one! Good on him!

Didnt watch it, kept an eye on the leaderboard and watched highlights as they appeared on nascar.com. Seemed like a pretty decent 500 all in all.

Whats your opinion on Jnr's little 'blend' on the back straight?

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yes, that was typical matt kenseth stuff. He was nowhere, and than suddenly a winner. He won the cup that way also. But that is just his style and only thing that counts is the final result.
I felt really bad for Klye Busch (I am not his fan, actually I hate the guy) because he was clearly dominating the race and was a victim of some pretty bad judgement by the lapped drver.
Lapped driver being Dale Earnhardt jr., who went a lap down because he and his team were the mess whole day lond, he desperately wanted to get back on the lead lap, and he triggered the backstretch incident.
I used to be real fan of jr. maintly because I rooted for senior, but little by little Jr. is starting to annoy me. Too much hype, and probably overrated aswell. Besides in his rookie season he was beaten by no one else than Matt Kenseth, yesterday's winner.

Going back to Kyle, well maybe it would be too soon for him to win be biggest race on the calendar, but there was another Kyle, but not on the racetrack. Sadly it ment that 43 year unbroken streak of petty name at daytona was finally broken. Funny enough, 43 years. Or is it funny. For Richard maybe it was, he looks content with a way things are going. His moniker light blue 43 turned into bright red mcdonalds sponsored 43, 44 went back to Kyles first win paint scheme. But what about Kyle. Moaning and bitching as usual? no. It virtually killed kim, he appears as a flying dutchman, no home, and no place to go. He placed a veto on number 45, sat in his car and dissapeared. Along the way he stated something about being the last in the line and that all ends in the end. I guess he is right, in thinking that his father sold his soul and that the one who should carry on the fammily tradition never actually got a chance to do it, and the one in the middle one got all the bitternes. Yesterday marked the end of the great american motorracing dinasty.

Go Ambrose - first Aussie in the 500 and he came 17th!

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2013 - Nando must come through..

I watched most of it, some good racing with a few good crashes too

Jrs crash was 75/25 for me.

You can't run people down below the yellow line like that. Jr had a big run on him, and when Vickers did move down, Jr already had a nose alongside him. Vickers not only put Jr on the apron, but he made contact with Jr whilst doing it (and later blamed Jr for that contact). So in that sense, if Vickers hadn't pulled an illegal move in the first place, it would never have happened.

But Jr f**ked up, big time. It wasn't deliberate, that isn't Jrs style. He made a silly mistake and ended up wrecking half the field. Vickers may have started it all, but Jr made the big mistake, and Jr could have avoided it all.

What annoyed me was NASCARs blatant favouritism here. In the Nationwide race, Leffler got a 5 lap penalty for doing a similar thing. Jr got nothing. Leffler was also refused the Free-Pass, because you aren't eligible for the free-pass when the reason you are a lap down is due to a penalty. Well Jr was a lap down because of a penalty (he had a wheel on the white line of the pit box during a stop), and yet NASCAR gave him the free-pass. What's that about?

I like Jr, but I'm tired of the favouritism.

Oh, also. F**k Goodyear. F**k off and come back when you have tyres which won't fall apart if they even see a race track. The amount of tyre issues that occur to cars not running extreme setups is a joke.

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If NASCAR had competition for the tyres, maybe it might force Goodyear to stop being so s**t. Allow Firestone or another company not based in the US (Bridgestone, Michelin, Dunlop, Pirelli etc) to test some tyres and see how they compare... competition worked well in Indycars before the speeds increased so dramatically. But if the problem is the cars chewing up the tyres, change the tyres, not the bloody cars! I read reports on the farcical 2008 Brickyard 400 last year, and Goodyear many times had the opportunity to test at that track with different teams, and they refused, and they paid the price with a race that rivalled the 2005 US Grand Prix for bringing the sport into disrepute. A US tyre company at a US track with major issues of tyre degradation is not good for the company's image.

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Everyone knows that million-to-one chances happen 9 times out of 10; indeed, it's a common requirement in fairy tales. If the human didn't have to overcome huge odds, what would be the point? Terry Pratchett - The Science Of Discworld

GPGSL S5 Race driver for IED.

Goodyear did test at the Brickyard last year with a handful of cars, and were told the tyres were junk. Jr said they lasted 10-15 laps, on a good stint. So Goodyear had plenty of warning that the Brickyard tyres would fail badly, and did nothing about it. Instead they did what they did the year before - they waited and hoped the track would rubber in nicely, to help stop the tyres coming apart. Instead it didn't rubber in nicely, and the tyres instead grained away to a fine dust, rather than what they normally do, which left them a whole weekend of problems.

Ganassi tested Firestone/Bridgestone tyres at Homestead on an ARCA chassis earlier this year.

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DaveEllis Wrote:
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> Ganassi tested Firestone/Bridgestone tyres at
> Homestead on an ARCA chassis earlier this year.


What was the outcome of that test?

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Everyone knows that million-to-one chances happen 9 times out of 10; indeed, it's a common requirement in fairy tales. If the human didn't have to overcome huge odds, what would be the point? Terry Pratchett - The Science Of Discworld

GPGSL S5 Race driver for IED.

Officially, the test didn't even happen. So nobody knows. But when there are 2 trucks with "Firestone" written down the side, a blank truck with an ARCA car, mechanics wearing Ganassi uniforms, and Scott Pruett at the wheel, it was obvious what was going on.

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DaveEllis Wrote:
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> Officially, the test didn't even happen. So nobody
> knows. But when there are 2 trucks with
> "Firestone" written down the side, a blank truck
> with an ARCA car, mechanics wearing Ganassi
> uniforms, and Scott Pruett at the wheel, it was
> obvious what was going on.

Figures. Wish NASCAR would be more open about their short-comings.

Haven't seen the race, won't until later this week when Racing Underground has a good capture and/or re-encode online.

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Everyone knows that million-to-one chances happen 9 times out of 10; indeed, it's a common requirement in fairy tales. If the human didn't have to overcome huge odds, what would be the point? Terry Pratchett - The Science Of Discworld

GPGSL S5 Race driver for IED.

It was also the first Daytona 500 win for Jack Roush as a team owner. Incredibe, given the fact that he is in the bussines for so long and his drivers were always front runners



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2009 09:29AM by horror donkey.

I think that says more about Fords history as poor restrictor plate runners than Roush.

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really? what abour RYR and Dale Jarrett

That was 8 years ago. 8 years since the last Ford win. In the last 20 years, Ford have only won 3 times until this year.

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that sounds fine to me

how many times Dodge won? or Pontiac? in the last 20 years.

You have to bear in mind that the most succesfull plate teams in the past 20 years were Hendrick and RCR and they all ran chevys. But I emphasise teams. Since we all know that all those cars are virtually the same.

that sounds fine to me

how many times Dodge won? or Pontiac? in the last 20 years.

I think your missing the point I tried to make here. I wasn't trying to show the obviously Chevrolet bias when it comes to NASCARs Championships and wins. I was trying to point out how strong Ford is (at least under the Roush Fenway banner) at all times - except when it comes to restrictor plate racing. When you consider Roush runs at the front every week, but when it comes to Daytona or Talladega they tend to flounder about in the mid-upper field, it really shows how weak they are there. And yet every year, Yates turns up with a RP Car capeable of being on the pole in single car runs, but isn't really that useful in a pack.

Although mentioning RCR when talking about the Chevrolet domanence of the 500 confused me a bit. I realise they are of course one of the great RP teams of all time, but they only won it twice - and Harvicks win can hardly be called convincing.

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I brought RCR in the context of plate races not only daytona 500, but other races at daytona and talladega, diehard400, souther500 ex winston500, RCR won at least 10 of those with late dale earnhardt. Daytona 500 was always a bit unlucky for them as a jinx, but nothing to do with bad performance, they were always at the front at daytona, just the final result was missing



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/18/2009 10:42AM by horror donkey.