Have a FaceBook, Twitter, or other social networking account?

Link them to your fanatic account!

Add An Account

TAKE ME TO...
NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
JENSEN: A Tale Of Two Daytonas
It was an up and down Speedweeks, capped off with an up and down Daytona 500...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted February 15, 2010   Daytona Beach, FL
SPEED.com's Editor-in-Chief Tom Jensen. (Image: SPEED)
With apologies to Charles Dickens, this year's Daytona Speedweeks really did represent the best of times and the worst of times.

The high points included:

• A great NASCAR Sprint Cup rules package and improved racing policies that encouraged boys to be boys at 195 miles per hour. Great stuff, all.

• A highly competitive Budweiser Shootout.

• Two thrilling Gatorade Duels with the combined margin of victory in the two weeks being 0.019 seconds.

• Danica Patrick's star-crossed debut in the Nationwide Series race, a race in which her boss Dale Earnhardt Jr. laughed out loud after a spectacular rollover accident at 190 miles per hour.

• A NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race that featured a great finish as Timothy Peters outfoxed veteran Todd Bodine on the last lap, albeit in a sloppy race.

And then, the Daytona 500.

A Daytona 500 that people will be talking about for years, for all the right reasons, and all the wrong ones, too.

The finish featured a surprise winner, Jamie McMurray, who wept tears of genuine unfettered joy in victory lane, something that was great to see.

McMurray was an underdog, winning for just the fourth time in 259 career Cup starts, and his Earnhardt Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates team is a David who on this day defeated the Goliaths from Roush, Hendrick, Gibbs and Childress.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., for the first time in a long time looked like his father, driving from 22nd to second in the final couple of laps, a drive that will have jaws wagging all week on sports talk radio and it'll burn up the Internet, too. Is Junior back? It sure seems like a good start. Or at least something positive to talk about, which the Earnhardt Nation hasn't had in, oh, forever.

The race featured 21 different drivers out front, an event record. There were 52 lead changes, third-most in Daytona history.

All week long, there were great storylines, each one seemingly better than the one that came before it. And if that doesn't get your heart racing, nothing ever will.

And then there was The Hole.

Located in Turn 2, a piece of pavement came up and created The Hole, which in turn necessitated two red flags that lasted nearly 2 ½ hours. A race that began at 1:30 p.m. ended at around 7:30 p.m., a totally and completely inexcusable state of affairs. Period.

If the National Football League played a Super Bowl that was delayed for 2 ½ hours because the playing field wasn't ready, it would make the league a nationwide laughingstock. And no amount of feelgood generated by the racing makes what happened on Sunday acceptable.

Just as no amount of explanations, excuses or spin-doctoring will change that reality. This can never be tolerated and can never happen again. End of story.

Faced with those conflicting points of view, I polled my Tweeps — you can follow me at twitter.com/tomjensen100 — and their reactions were almost universally positive.

Here are what some of them had to say:

• carolynbrewster — The end … hands down that was some of the best racing I can remember.

• jfb33g — The hole will be remembered, but it didn't prevent a great finish.

• brucethenomad — The delay let me work on my car. I finished in time to watch the finish. Pretty cool.

• jayjaydean — I would say the potholes turned a five-star 500 into a four-star 500. Still awesome, but could have been greatest ever.

• tstewartluvr14 — I don't care about the hole any more, the finish kicked ass!

And honestly, I think the above comments pretty much sum up how I feel after Speedweeks — It should have been a five-star week, but I'll give it four. And, yes, the finish totally kicked.

More importantly, I hope it portends well for a year of great racing. We'll see as the year goes on, but for now, things are off to a good start. Let's hope it only improves from here.

Play! SPEED Fantasy Racing Cup Edition - Spring Series



Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED, and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com! Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to
tom_jensen's avatar

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Jensen

MORE BY THIS AUTHOR
Advertising | Jobs | Feedback | FAQ | Terms of Use | NEW Privacy Policy | Ad Choices | Site Map
Fox Sports | FUEL TV | FX Network | National Geographic | IGN | AskMen
The Motor Sports Authority, SPEED and associated logos are registered trademarks of Speed Channel Inc.
All Rights Reserved © Speed Channel, Inc. 2012

All external links will open in a new browser window. SPEED.com does not endorse external sites.