Coke Zero 400 Notes

by Bruce Simmons

Crazy finish, but then again, it's Daytona.

After the start of the race, Tony Stewart relinquished the No 20 Home Depot Toyota to J.J. Yeley due to flu like symptoms and J.J. wasn't doing too bad in the car.  Nice to see him driving top notch equipment to see how he'd do.

Lap 104 we saw Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Elliot Sadler, Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin leading the pack that was just pacing themselves out.
With 40 laps to go, the field started to compress into a smaller footprint as the closing laps loomed ahead and pacing was becoming a receding thought.

There were a few cautions through to the end, including the last lap.
Lap 124, Gilliland wrecked into Newman,
By lap 127 things were getting sharkey up front.
Lap 130 McMurray spins off of Vickers nose.
Lap 136 saw Hamlin and Newman melded car, Newman got the worse for wear in this one.
Lap 140 the No 6 got into it, taking out the No. 31 and 5 cars.
The restart saw the 24, 18, 8, 9 and 15 cars leading the pack.
Lap 149, Boris Said finished up his day.4 to go:  18, 24, 99, 17, 8
Lap 157, Dave Blaney got turned up into Jimmie Johnson and collected a few others.

This led to the inevitable, but exciting green, white checkered finish.

Taking the flag for the last restart of the race:  18, 24, 99, 17, 6, 2, 9, 55, 8 & 07 cars lead the pack to the green.

On the restart Kyle Busch had a slow restart, bunching up the cars.  Jeff Gordon got slowed up and spun off the nose of Carl Edwards.  No yellow came out and the field continued under green. 

Two or three different times I thought i saw a wreck starting in three and four wide racing, but they kept saving it up until the last lap and the 77 car got into someone or someone got into him and the semi-big one happened, with review by video by NASCAR determining the finishing order.  That was one heck of a wreck yard finish.

Kyle Busch won the Coke Zero 400.  Finishing behind him, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch were the top 4.
Behind them there was David Ragan, Clint Bowyer, Robby Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Brian Vickers and Mark Martin are probably the top 10. 

The rest of the finishing spots in the field is still being reviewed ny NASCAR... I guess the cars facing the right direction versus the cars facing the wrong direction and who got under way after the wreck were some of the determining factors.  The finish focus was more on the middle of the pack positions than the front runners.

The unofficial results at NASCAR.
I'll get back to you on points and things afterward but I'm suspecting there are going to be some words next week about the slow restart led by Kyle Busch and a few other fender blending incidents.