2012 Budweiser Shootout at Daytona - A Recap

The first race of the year kicked off the NASCAR season in style.  NASCAR has been working hard to codify the fans who didn't like the tandem restrictor-plate drafting from the last few years.  I initially wasn't a fan of the draft, but it did generate some great, dramatic finishes.

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As the 2012 Budweiser Shootout started it seems that all of NASCAR's tampering has paid off and I haven't seen any of the tandem drafting that we have become accustomed to over the last few seasons.  It's early in the race though.

The first incident 10 laps in collected a few cars, with Ragan getting in to Menard that collected 8 cars of the field.

In the past few seasons the tandem drafting pretty much did a decent job to minimize "the big one" in the race.  But with the tandem drafting possibly eliminated (As I write this early in the race), I have to wonder if we're going to start seeing more wrecks that collect more cars.

With 25 laps in the books, they pit for the intermission where teams get to work on their cars.

Coming back out after the pit stops, we saw our first 4-wide action in the competition.  Yea...  NASCAR got the cars right.

Later, Martin Truex Jr. sent Clint Bowyer sliding through the infield.  They were coming up on Carl Edwards, Bowyer went right, Edwards moved up and blocked and Bowyer tried to slide back down, but instead, spun off of Truex's front bumper.  I wonder if radio communication between drivers, which is now banned, could have possibly prevented that.  Probably not, but I had to wonder.

Then... with 28 laps to go, Kyle Busch got sideways...  and saved it.  That was impressive, but his stunt of using his side window to drive scattered the field a bit.  Kyle did the sideways stunt twice and still pulled it off.  He demonstrated yet again, his talent at the wheel of a car at 200mph!


With 20 to go another multi-car wreck erupted, taking some more cars out of contention.  Dale Jr, Harvick, Logano, Kenseth, Truex Jr. ...

I think my premise about the after-effect of eliminating the tandem drafting is not that far off in concept.

Dustin Long, fr Sports Illustrated, tweeted the following:

"Bud Shootout is showing that game plan to win Daytona 500 is ride half a lap behind pack most of the day to avoid accidents"

And here I thought the reduced cooling capacity of the radiators was going to be the beast that bites the teams.

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With 10 to go, the pack started to coil back up and the freeway look started to take over as the cars started to put themselves in their spots, ready for that last lap or two.

As the cars bunched up, Jeff Gordon tried to wiggle Kyle Busch out of the way and started the last "big one" of the race.  There were 8 cars collected in this one.

We came down to a Green/White/Checkered to finish the night.

Stewart took the green flag for the GWC... and then it came down to Kyle Busch pushing Tony Stewart away from the pack and to the checkered...  just those two...

In a move of superb timing, Kyle Busch slung out from behind Tony Stewart and snagged the checkered flag in the closest finish in the history of the Shootout, and the first Toyota to win a shootout.

This was one was a fun and crazy race to watch...  The following is the finishing order on the track:

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The 2012 Budweiser Shootout Finishing Order

FIN		CAR	DRIVER	STATUS
1	-	18	Kyle Busch	Running
2	-	14	Tony Stewart	Running
3	-	9	Marcos Ambrose	Running
4	-	2	Brad Keselowski	Running
5	-	11	Denny Hamlin	Running
6	-	16	Greg Biffle	Running
7	-	39	Ryan Newman	Running
8	-	15	Clint Bowyer	Running
9	-	99	Carl Edwards	Running
10	-	42	Juan Montoya	Running
11	-	31	Jeff Burton	Running
12	-	22	A.J. Allmendinger	Running
13	-	5	Kasey Kahne	Running
14	-	48	Jimmie Johnson	Accident
15	-	24	Jeff Gordon	Accident
16	-	1	Jamie McMurray	Accident
17	-	51	Kurt Busch	Accident
18	-	20	Joey Logano	Accident
19	-	56	Martin Truex Jr.	Accident
20	-	88	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Accident
21	-	17	Matt Kenseth	Accident
22	-	29	Kevin Harvick	Accident
23	-	27	Paul Menard	Accident
24	-	34	David Ragan	Accident
25	-	140	Michael Waltrip	Accident

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Later, Kyle Busch, in an interview, said on the racing in the Budweiser Shootout: "It was great driving when I wasn't getting turned around."

The 2012 season of NASCAR racing is back in full swing.  Penalties were already handed out in inspections (to Johnson's team) and drivers already wanted to talk about events in the shootout.  But all in all, the NASCAR season is now in full swing and next weekend is the Daytona 500.

(Photos by Matthew Stockman, Jamie Squire/Getty Images)