The 2008--and 50th--running of the Daytona 500 is complete. Congratulations to Ryan Newman on picking up the victory. This version of the 500 reminded me very much of last year's rendition. A year ago, Kurt Busch & Tony Stewart had the dominant cars through the first 150 laps, much like Kyle Busch & Stewart did this year. And, just like a year ago, the first 150 laps were pretty tame, and then things began to get crazier in the final 50 laps.
While it took awhile for the race to get going, I thought this was one of the most competitive 500s in recent years. On a scale from 1 to 10, I'd give this race a 6 1/2.
One of the things I'm going to do for each race is hand out various awards. Most of these are self-explanatory. And after each month or so take a look at the various categories for the season.
The first one is the Surprisingly Good finish.....for the Daytona 500, it has to go to the race winner Ryan Newman. While I had Newman as my darkhorse, his victory was totally unexpected. He rode in the top 5 almost the entire 2nd half of the race.
Next, is the "Didn't Give Up" award.....for this one, I'm going with Newman's teammate, Kurt Busch. For the most part, Busch had about a top 25 car.....yet wound up pushing Newman to the victory and finishing in the runner-up spot.
The hard-luck ace.....the driver who ran stronger than his finish shows. No doubt this one has to go to Jeff Gordon. He was running top 15 for the majority of the race, but suspension problems led to him finishing in the 39th position.
The "Should've Stayed in Bed" award.....going to the driver who simply had a bad day. I'm giving this one to Joe Nemechek. From the early point in the race, they were having problems, and were never able to right the ship, and wound up in 41st.
The last one is the Suprisingly Bad finish.....for this, I'm again going to go with Jeff Gordon.
From Saturday's Nationwide race, while Tony Stewart was the victor, the performance I was most impressed with was former champion Brian Vickers, who finished 4th.
It's now on to California, with the Auto Club 500 next weekend.
I would give another award too, the biggest let down, to Jeff Burton, my favorite driver. He had the lead with 5 laps to go, and got sucked into the field on the restart. Good post.
I posted last week that the winner in Cup races at Daytona comes from the Top Ten starters almost 92% of the time and that Kevin's win from 34th last year was an anomaly. But what an awesome run for Kurt who started 43rd and had a couple of problems in the race only to end up second. He clearly is the winner in the perserverance category. Of course, Ryan started 7th so once again the winner started in the top ten.
This was probably the best 500 in at least 10 years. Ironically, that would make the 1998 Daytona 500 in line with this one. Surprise winner that year too. Everyone kept hoping for it, but few really believed it would happen. Just like Newman. His fans and crew hoped for it, but really few believed it would happen.
