Daytona 500

The re-paved Daytona track is obviously a winner (for $21 million in paving it damn well should be). There was a full field. The record crowd saw lots of wrecks and crashes. There was good drama. The speeds were way up there. There was a Cinderella ending with Trevor Baine winning (who the hell is he). All in all, good entertainment.

But is two car drafting using restrictor plates really automobile racing? I felt like I was watching a roller derby or a doubles tennis match.

Baine raced for the Wood Bros (only the one car)...other teams have up to 4 cars with big names, this guy is a 20 year old rookie...

Im sorry to say the last 10 laps of that "race" was about as close to racing as it was playing baseball. It was pathetic. Why bother making those races 400-500 mile races when all you have to do is push the guy in front of you out of the way.
I know, I know, it's NASCAR blah, blah, blah. It sucks! I'm glad I only tuned in to see who won and didn't waste my time watching more than 20 mins. I don't know why I always seem to get sucked into watching the bigger NASCAR races and everytime I do Im reminded why I don't watch NASCAR.

Bayne was 19 last week, his car had no damage - didn't swap any paint.

Cool dialogue after he won about "do your thing" he was a little confused about what to do about a proper burnout.

and everyone seems to like him.

Neat...

Yeah once they went to restrictor plate racing, I was done with the big tracks. When I do anymore, I only watch the short track races. I can't see the sense of watching racing where they intentionally slow down the cars.

~WB

I agree what you are saying Wild Bill, but I cannot name a single race series that hasn't done this, including F1, nascar, Can-AM, Trans-AM, Group 7, you name it. And it started 50 years ago!

Hell, way back, I can remember when the most popular race of the day was "Formula Libre" (formula free). Run what you brung. No rules (it ultimately morphed into CanAm). It was typically the last race of the day. Then it allowed every single winner of of any prior race that day to also start in the back of the pack. That got REAL interesting.

The only place I know of that currently has "unlimited" rules is maybe Offshore Boat Racing?

i hate nascar but wasnt there a pileup that took out 14 cars or about 1/2 the field. lots less competition..

Ill say it again... racing should only be a two person sport when you have a navigator sitting next to you. It would have been a much better race had they all just raced. I hate seeing crashes during a race. So much time, money, and effort goes into getting that car down the track.

I do think 75% of nascar fans watch it for the crashes and soap opera type drama between drivers, so i guess Daytona was a success. Lame. Cant wait for F1 season - 28 days till Melbourne.

Yeah. There's for sure no soap opera type drama between drivers in F1.

The Daytona 500 should be renamed the "Dossy Doh" 500, Pick your partner & Dossy Doh. I think both the winner & his "pusher" should have gone to victory lane.

That's funny, Mark ;)
Bummer about Bahrain being rescheduled. I'm with Paul, I'm not sure what harder to deal with for me, the frickin cold and snow or the F1 winter break.
Dave,
They still run an unlimited class in karting. If you want to see some crazy $hit that's got it.

I'm with you, Tom. Ridiculous. Just goes to show that it's down to whomever is lucky enough to be in or close to the lead on the last lap wins the race. There were over 60 lead changes last week at Daytona...sheesh! Not necessarily the best driver and/or fastest car wins. So a winless rookie happens to be in the right place at the right time. Booyah! I'd take Bristol over Daytona ANY day!
One only has to watch the last ten laps at Daytona and Talledega to see who wins.
~WB

Yeah. Who wants to sit through a whole ten laps of that to see who wins. At Bristol, you get to see who is the winner in ONE lap.

Dumb luck winner? You must have been watching a different race than me. I watched a win-less rookie spend 3 or so hours and 497-1/2 miles flawlessly constructing last lap "luck". He BEAT 42 other drivers, he didn't just out-luck them.
"Lucky" is when you are the only car left on the on the lead lap that hasn't pitted when a Yellow flag gets thrown.