Daytona 500

So the Daytona 500 has just been run.
Following Kurt Busch's wins in both the Budweiser Shootout and the Gatorade Duel qualifying race, 11 other men have succeded in completeing the Shootout and Duel double, but none had gone on the win the Daytona 500. Could he create history? or would someone else take the honour from him, just 200 laps, and 500miles till we would find out.
Dale Earnhardt Jr, the pole sitter in the 88, had to start from the back, due to a crash he suffered in practice.
So with the new surface laid, smoother than the old, we were expecting a new breed of racing on this 2.5mile tri-oval, with bated breathe the green fell, on what was to become the 500's wildest and incident prone event in history, with a record breaking 16 cautions being flown.
The first couple of laps went by with little event, settling down for the long haul, drivers finding there first drafting buddies, on lap 3 the crowd went quiet, holding 3 fingers aloft in the air, in a fitting tribute to the late great Dale Earnhardt, who was sadly taken on the last lap of this event 10 years ago.
A couple of small moments caused the first couple of yellows, before the anticipated "big one" happened on lap 29, taking out 14 car's including defending champion Jimmy Johnson along with Jeff Gordon and all bar Dale Earnhardt Jr of the Hendrick cars. Which happened after Michael Waltrip turned around his team-mate David Reutimann at Turn 4.
With many of the expected title contenders forced back into the garage for repair, the door was open for someone to step up and calm a famous victory.
Juan Pablo Montoya survived two wild rides, which after the save's was forced to take to pit road both times.
With 10 to go David Ragan lead with his "Two car tango" partner and rookie Trevor Bayne bump drafting behing, from the Busch brothers. When a caution took us to the Green, White, Cheuqered finish.
On the restart Ragan choose to take the outside lane, he pulled down, as Bayne hesistated to pull infront of him so the Two could resume there two car tango to the finish, NASCAR unforunatly deemed this to be illegal and black flagged Ragan, then the yellow came out once more.
Second attempt, with Ragan now out of the running, Bayne appears to have lost his partner, not to mention that now into the 205th lap, he's been told to save fuel.
Lap 206 and we're green, when Bobby Labonte gave Bayne a push until the last corner, looked as if the tango of Busch and Montoya were getting a head of steam, until that steam ran out on the back straight.
Rookie Bayne rounded the last corner, and had pulled slightly clear of Labonte, he looked sure to win as he headed for the line, and in only his second NASCAR sprint cup race, and first Daytona 500 event Bayne made history as the first to win on only his first attempt at Americas Greatest Race.
All this on the day after his 20th birthday. and to give the Wood Brothers, NASCARs oldest team there first win for a decade.

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