The unofficial season opener for NASCAR's Nextel Cup series took place at Daytona International Speedway this past weekend, and it was preceded by a great deal of anticipation.
Veteran driver Dale Jarrett drew the pole position in a ceremony held on Thursday for the Bud Shootout, an all-star race, which, since 1979, has been composed of the previous season's pole winners. This was significant because he is the new pilot of the No. 44 UPS Toyota. That's right - Toyota. The Bud Shootout marked the first time since 1963 that a foreign manufacturer has competed in a Nextel Cup series race. That time, it was Smokey Cook and his No. 32 MG, a British automobile.
When the green flag flew on Saturday night, however, Jarrett's car was immediately passed by the No. 10 Valvoline Dodge of Scott Riggs, and Jarrett quickly faded to the back of the pack and was never a factor in the race, finishing 17th. The race itself was a traditional nerve-racking, edge-of-your-seat 200 mph traffic jam with frantic pit stops mixed in between the on-track chaos. It was nothing short of a miracle that there were no wrecks until the last lap, as a number of close calls took place. Kevin Harvick, in his newly sponsored No. 29 Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet, nearly lost it in front of the entire field several times, but he managed to regain control. Ken Schrader and Greg Biffle made side-to-side contact in the tri-oval on the front stretch, but they gathered it up very quickly. The most notable near miss was when eventual winner Tony Stewart "bump-drafted" Kyle Busch's No. 5 car in Turn 1 late in the 70 lap affair, sending him up the track and back to seventh place.
The irony of the situation is that Stewart was outraged after last year's Bud Shootout because he thought that "someone [would] die at Daytona" if NASCAR didn't try to stop the bump-drafting. The technique is used on restrictor plate tracks to move past the car in front of you by bumping its rear end and thus advancing yourself in the process. Busch noted the paradox himself.
"The only bad part about it is he's the guy that complained [last year] we were going to kill somebody out here," Busch said.
The age-old saying that there are two sides to every story held true when Stewart claimed in victory lane that he only loosened up Busch without contact.
Kyle Busch only took two tires on his last pit stop, which may have contributed to Stewart being faster, since he replaced all four. Tires were a major issue during the event, as Goodyear decided to bring a harder, slicker compound. Drivers felt as if this played a part in the looseness of the cars.
It took until the last lap of the race for trouble to break out. Dale Earnhardt Jr., in his No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet, took a page out of Stewart's book and attempted to bump-draft with Elliott Sadler coming out of turn 4 to take the checkered flag.
However, Earnhardt was not on a straight part of the track at the time, so it lifted Sadler's No. 19 Dodge off the ground, turning him sideways. He spun in front of Denny Hamlin's No. 11 FedEx Chevy. Hamlin had nowhere to go and hit the wall and then was clobbered in the side by Sadler's teammate, Kasey Kahne.
Earnhardt took full responsibility for the accident.
"I was trying to help one of my best friends [Sadler] get to the front, but I bumped him when he wasn't on the straightaway yet and spun him out," Earnhardt said. "I'm really sorry."
Sadler could be seen walking over to Earnhardt's car to ask if he was all right and smiling as he walked away, as if he fully understood that the incident was unintentional. Other notable problems took place when Ryan Newman's engine blew in his No. 12 Alltel Dodge and when electrical problems caused the engine to intermittently shut off in Jeff Gordon's car. They finished 20th and 21st out of a total of 21 cars, respectively.
On a side note, David Gilliland, who qualified his Robert Yates Racing No. 38 M&Ms Ford on the pole for the Daytona 500 on Sunday, finished second in the Bud Shootout.
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