Stewart-Haas Racing gets pushed around
There were some insightful and interesting comments from racers after the 60th running of the Daytona 500 Sunday.
Typical of restrictor-plate races where all the cars run flatout on the 2.5-mile banked oval, there were several smash-ups that took out many of the competitors. This year, only 10 of the 40 starters were on the lead lap when Austin Dillon claimed the victory on a last-lap pass.
Aric Almirola found himself in the lead on the last lap, but was punted around by Dillon and crashed into the wall.
“I’m so devastated,” said the driver of the Smithfield Ford Fusion. “I thought I was going to win the Daytona 500. I’m just disappointed. I wanted to get Smithfield to victory lane, and I wanted to get Ford to victory lane. With this switch to StewartHaas Racing this year I couldn’t have thought of a better way to start off this relationship than with a trip to victory lane in the Daytona 500. I did everything I could. I just ended up in the infield care centre.”
The Tampa native started the three-segment race 37th, took 18th in the first stage, and fourth in the second segment. He placed 11th overall.
Last year’s Daytona 500 winner, Kurt Busch, had high hopes of a repeat. He started 11th and won the first stage (laps 1-60), took 12th in stage two (laps 61120), and was in the top three on lap 199 of the third stage when he got involved in the multi-car smash on turn two. Also driving a Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing, Busch ended up his day in 26th.
“I was feeling the magic. I thought we could do it again back-to-back and win the Daytona 500,” Busch said after the race.
“We found the right drafting lanes, and I was making good moves. I just got caught in a Bermuda Triangle it seemed like when Hamlin blocked us. I hit him pretty hard, and that killed a lot of my momentum. Maybe I should have just flung the 11 (Hamlin), but you have to treat guys with respect and you’ve also got to throw your elbows out and you have to hold the hits when you get hit. We were close to going
back-to-back in the Daytona 500, but I don’t have anything to show for it.”
Another Stewart-Hass Racing driver, 2014 NASCAR Cup champion Kevin Harvick was also taken out in the race, and although his Ford was bashed up, the crew tried to get him back in the race but missing body parts curtailed his return.
While Harvick finished seventh in the first stage and started third in the second stage, he got collected up on the lap 102 melee. The crew repaired the car as well as it could, and although it went
back out to race, the missing right door didn’t sit well with race officials.
“Apparently, you have to have the door. I thought it was just the door foam, but you’ve got to have some metal on the outside of the door,” Harvick said.
“We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he continued. “Two guys, I couldn’t tell. It looked to me like there was one too many blocks, and the blocking car wound up spinning out and the 2 car (Brad Keselowski) hit the 24 (William Bryon) and wound up coming up the racetrack into me. It was like a can opener on the way by.”
A name well-known to Canadian short track fans, D.J. Kennington of St. Thomas, drove the Gaunt Brothers Racing Toyota to a 24th-place finish after starting 30th. And one of NASCAR’s biggest media stars, Danica Patrick, was taken out during the Stage 2 smash-up with her Go Daddysponsored Chevy, placing 35th in her final NASCAR event.
How much Dillon won may never be officially published. This transparency disappeared two years ago when NASCAR and the teams negotiated its charter deal and the sanction no longer discloses how much money is given out to the teams after an event.
But according to the last published winnings in 2016, winner Denny Hamlin received $1,581,453, so it is safe to say 27year-old Dillon, driver of the Richard Childress Chevrolet and also Childress’ grandson, won at least the winning amount posted in the 2016 version of the Great American Race.