Pepsi 400 Notes, Results, Recap

The Pepsi 400, at Daytona International raceway started, and this writer watched with intrepidation, worried about any chance of rain, Jeff Gordon led the field of 43 cars across the start finish line for July night racing, under the lights, sparks flying, paint schemes swapping fenders, for 160 laps.

Early on, the fan favorite to win, Tony Stewart took out his team mate, and of course, blamed Denny Hamlin for running through him. This incident also took Dale Earnhardt Jr out of contention as he got caught up in the crash splatter.

On Lap 34, Jamie McMurray was black flagged for passing someone with his left side tires ON or below the yellow line!

On Lap 56, Juan Montoya slid up into Kevin Harvick, taking him into the wall, and out of contention.

With 29 to go, Reutimann slid up into the wall, and as Bobby Labonte ducked below him, Juan Montoya drove through Labonte, taking him out of the race.

With 20 to go, I thought I saw Kyle Busch do the same thing passing someone the way Jamie McMurray did when he got black flagged, but no penalties. No mention. I could have seen wrong.

In the last 30 laps, we saw 3 yellows. The top 10 in the pack were all over each other, as Kyle Busch, Jamie McMurray, Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards, Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon, Greg Biffle were like one big mass in those closing laps, and in the end, with Jamie and Kyle side by side for the last couple of laps.

IN a last lap push, side by side, Kyle moved up into Jamie to suck the draft off of him coming off of turn 4. I thought Jamie was done, but in so doing, Kyle lost his brothers push draft for just long enough, and Jamie McMurray, with Carl Edwards behind him, drove to the 2nd closest finishing win in NASCAR history (Since they started electronic timing in the 90's. BTW, Kurt was involved in the closest timed finish ever, losing to Ricky Craven at Darlington. The Busch brothers are officially in the record book!)

These last few laps were as intense a set of laps this writer has ever watched, with so many cars at each others throats, all of them, a potential winner in a few laps.

Jamie McMurray, recovering from his pass through penalty, wins the Pepsi 400 at Daytona. Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer (On his wheels this time!), Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne rounded out the top 10 unnofficial spots!

The time span between 1st and 29th was 2.7 seconds, with 30 cars on the lead lap! This was a great restrictor plate race, the last one, for this era car. An excellent closing statement for this body type.

Here are the unofficial results:
http://www.nascar.com/races/cup/2007/18/data/results_unofficial.html

by Bruce Simmons, the Fan Reporter.