Cola wars
It's a good thing they run 190 mph at Daytona. Otherwise, they might not have gotten in Saturday's rain-delayed race under the lights. How about those calls for more Saturday night races? Maybe if they could run them all in Nevada where there's no weather. But I digress...
The best memory from the Pepsi 400 will be Jeff Gordon standing in victory lane with his Pepsi Win A Billion car asking rhetorically what "all those red cars were doing out there," referring of course to the Coca-Cola C2 scheme that appeared on the hoods of no less than eight cars. What was with that anyway? Coke trying to up its odds that it might be sitting in victory lane at its rival's namesake race, no doubt. Well, it only took Pepsi one car to make it to the winner's circle, and what a dominant performance he turned in. Jeff was the man to beat all night, and not even the usually dominant DEI cars could keep up with him.
Would you believe that at one point around mid-race I had the top six cars? Yep. True. Was as high as 7-out-of-10 close to the finish, but alas, the position shuffling that Daytona is famous for left me a disappointing 5-of-10:
GLENN'S TEN:
* Dale Jarrett (winner) -- 16th, Did his drop-to-the-back thing all right, but he never got back up with the leaders. Don't think the car was all that good.
* Jeff Gordon -- 1st, This guy is on fire, even when he does leave the flames parked at home. They talked about him on the pre-race and said he is back on his game because he has put some of his personal issues to rest. If so, that's bad news for the competition. Something tells me Jeff's not done winning yet this year. Four victories this season leads the league and leaves him just eight shy of tying Dale Earnhardt (Sr., not Jr.) for career wins.
* Jimmie Johnson -- 2nd, Got to push his teammate across the line and picked up another top 5. Didn't lead a lap.
* Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- 3rd, Recovered from the speedboat routine following pit stop midway through the race, when he wound up in the wet grass trying to avoid contact with Jeff Gordon and Brian Vickers. Don't think that played a role in his failure to win. Judging from the way he blew by Gordon a couple of times on the track, he certainly had a car equal to the task if things had worked out differently in the closing laps.
* Michael Waltrip -- 13th, Mikey got shuffled out of the draft and seemed to be having engine troubles at one point. An atypical restrictor performance.
* Elliott Sadler -- 26th, Got nicked in the Ward Burton/Matt Kenseth crash early and the car never looked good.
* Greg Biffle -- 31st, Biffle blew my night when he had mechanical trouble in the closing laps and fell out of the top 10, where he had been most of the race.
* Kevin Harvick -- 14th, What's up with Harvick this year? Guy's not getting the good finishes at tracks where he should be running better. Not that this was awful, but this is the same guy everyone's been saying has a shot at a Daytona win.
* Mark Martin -- 6th, A solid performance. Didn't hear much about him, but he was consistently moving up in the pack and briefly challenged for the lead in the final laps.
* Tony Stewart -- 5th, Could have seen this coming after the week he's had. Got to the front, but didn't have the tires (or the horsepower) to hold off Gordon at the end.
REST OF THE TOP 10:
* Kurt Busch -- 4th, I came close to picking him. He needed some breaks to fall his way if he was going to win this one.
* Bobby Labonte -- 7th, Ugly paint scheme didn't keep him from sneaking into the top 10.
* Terry Labonte -- 8th, Reports that he is ready to retire may be premature.
* Brian Vickers -- 9th, A 4-for-4 night for the Hendrick cars. Ran as high as second but never led a lap.
* Joe Nemechek -- 10th, See what happens when I dis a guy? He winds up having a good run. Been a while since we've seen Joe with a top 10 to show for his decent run.
OTHER NOTABLES:
* Casey Mears -- 11th, I'm convinced now that the kid has some talent. Just wait until he gets a win one of these days.
* Ryan Newman -- 12th, Just doesn't have it at these restrictor tracks, but at least he finished.
* Kyle Petty -- 24th, Gotta love his honesty in the pre-race. When being interviewed about this being the 20th anniversary of his dad's 200th career win, he was asked if he might be ready to make some more Petty memories in this race, to which Kyle responded that some guys were leaders and others were followers, and that he was going to be one of the followers tonight. That's a tactful way of acknowledging your loser status.
* Matt Kenseth -- 39th, Couldn't miss a wrecking Ward Burton and took a huge hit in the points. Now down to 5th.
* John Andretti -- 43rd, #1 equals first car out of the race. Not a strong argument for bringing back the #1 full time next season.
Next week... Fox hands over the reins to NBC and Jeff Gordon goes for the trifecta with his first win at Chicagoland.
