The Super Bowl of NASCAR took place this past Sunday at the newly designed and renovated Daytona International Speedway.
Renovations began back in 2013 and has fully changed the look of the track, the project in total cost 400 million dollars but the appearance looks worth every cent. This is NASCAR’s first return to the ‘World Center of Racing’ and it couldn’t have gone any better.
0.011. That was the amount of time between winner Denny Hamlin and runner-up Martin Truex Jr This is the closest finish in NASCAR history at Daytona and ranking 13th in all-time closest finishes.
Denny Hamlin overcame an early race hiccup to win his first Daytona 500 on his 11th attempt. Hamlin finished runner up in the 2014 edition of the 500, finishing behind fan favourite Dale Earnhardt Jr. Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards also rounded out the top five.
This was also the rookie debut of Xfinity Series sensation Chase Elliott. Chase started the race from the pole position and thus far is the youngest to do so. He only held the lead until lap four when Dale Earnhardt Jr took control.
Things only went from bad to worse and Elliott found himself falling further and further into the field and then solidifying his debut with a mid-race wreck sliding through the infield grass and ripping his front splitter.
His team then made quick repairs to put him back on track only to finish 37th out of the 40 car pack. However Earnhardt Jr, who previously had been the favourite to win, also had his meeting with the infield grass crashing out with 37 laps to go. His team didn’t make any effort to repair the car as they knew it would not be worth there time resulting in a finish one position above Chase Elliott.
This is the first Daytona 500 since 1991 without NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon, although he did play a big part in the race by providing play by play from the announcers booth. The 500 just didn’t feel the same without him on the track.
Gordon is a three-time winner of the 500 and the youngest to win the biggest race in motorsports. His three trophies sit right next to his four Championships that he won in 95, 97, 98 and 2001. Among other big name drivers who were absent from Daytona was three-time champ Tony Stewart.
Stewart announced that he would retire towards the end of last year’s season at the end of 2016. He has never claimed a Daytona 500 victory and was hoping that his final year would be the year that he would do it. But plans changed as he was involved in a accident, flipping an off-road vehicle in the sands of California slipping a disk in his back.
Stewart has not announced any changes to his retirement plans and is expected to return in May.
No matter how you feel about racing or NASCAR in general there was no denying that Sunday’s race was one for the history books and you should consider yourself lucky if you were able to bear witness to it.
Next weekend NASCAR heads northern to race at Atlanta. If it is anything like the treat we saw this past weekend it is sure to be worth the watch.
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