With a seemingly capacity crowd of rain soaked fans looking on late into the night at The World Center of Racing, fan favorite Dale Earnhardt, Jr. snapped a 55 race drought by winning his second Daytona 500 a decade after winning his first.
After a six and a half hour rain delay, which back in the day would have cost a small fortune for our limo travelers, the race track enhanced the racing as the fans witnessed a 500 for the ages on the high banks. Amidst the excitement surrounding Earnhardt's big win, it is noteworthy that the rookie class performed quite well. There were the normal amount of big crashes, and yes, Danica Patrick got taken out in action that was not her fault.
No Ones Beatch won the week with a strong effort, beating Man In Black to the finish line. 2013 Glynn is off to a great start again, scoring third, with BAHL and Team Taser rounding out the top five. Rookie OShea Racing grabbed a top finish, but incredibly, three racers already find themselves 100 points out of the lead. They had better call Ray Evernham for some consult.
We have a much smaller group this year as we anticipated. A mega team of 11 racers last year dropped down to five this fall. Five racers went bankrupt and were deleted, although we will be attending their hearing as creditors. Three originals, Budah, FFP and Oiler, were unable to focus each week and placed their race equipment in the barn. Our racers from Tampa town reduced their team numbers as well.
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NOTE ABOUT BOXES (PLEASE READ)
Several competitors inquired about some of our boxes having very few drivers, where everybody was likely to select the same driver. Although we have always used last seasons points for the first box set, even including racers who died or retired, this year there was such an enormous amount of turnover, it left a few of the boxes non-competitive.
As NASCAR does, we had to evaluate the option of making changes where and when necessary, and have done so in this case. The following is a synopsis of the changes which will be in effect for the remainder of the first box set, or the next five races.
Boxes 1-6 remain the same. Box 7 moved three drivers, who did not participate in Speedweeks and are not expected to have a ride anytime soon, to Box 8. These drivers were replaced by the highest finishing racers at Daytona from Box 8 who have a full time ride. Bobby Labonte, who finished 15th at Daytona, is expected to make additional starts for HScott Racing and was therefore left in Box 7. Changes for other boxes, most notably Box 5, were considered but were rejected.
We apologize for making changes in mid-box, but the opinions expressed were overwhelmingly in favor of doing so. Changes in this regard have been and will continue to be rare, but we reserve the right to offer the most competitive product we can for our participants.
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Junior will be tired from all his media commitments, but we head across the country to Phoenix this week for the running of The PROFIT On CNBC 500 at Phoenix International Raceway. No word if CNBC's Lary Kudlow will be the grand marshal, but he is certainly worthy. Carl Edwards is the defending champion.
The green flag is scheduled to drop at 3:15PM EST. Stand on it!
