Filed under: Daytona Int’l Speedway, NASCAR

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Flashing his dimples, and looking even younger than his 20 years, Trevor Bayne grinned broadly, laughed and fidgeted as he conducted his first news conference as the youngest Daytona 500 winner in history.

One day after celebrating his 20th birthday Bayne drove the legendary No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford to victory Sunday in NASCAR‘s biggest race — sharing the honor with the team’s previous Daytona 500 winning drivers, A.J. Foyt, Cale Yarborough, Tiny Lund and David Pearson. Bayne wasn’t even born when Pearson claimed the Wood Brothers’ last Daytona 500 trophy in 1976.

Explaining how grateful he was for the opportunity, thankful for his good fortune and appreciative of his team’s efforts, the good-looking, well-spoken Bayne sounded as mature and poised behind the microphone as he was behind the steering wheel in holding off three series champions and a handful of other veterans on the last two laps of Sunday’s race.

The Knoxville, Tenn., native’s biggest smile, however, seemed to come when he found out that his Twitter account expanded from 6,000 followers to 16,000 by the end of the race. And, he modestly conceded, he was going to need a friend to drive his Ford truck home. Seems that while most of Bayne’s competitors flew in private jets to the race, he drove his Ford F150 pickup truck from Tennessee to Florida.

“I never expected to be sitting in here,” Bayne said during the winner’s interview in the infield media center, “So I’m sorry to be all bouncing around while I’m giving you my answers, but I figure it’s just a dream anyway.”

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Daytona 500 Winner Trevor Bayne Living a Dream at 20

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Filed under: Elliott Sadler, Michael Waltrip, Daytona Int’l Speedway, SPEED TV, NASCAR

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — An emotional, out-of-breath Michael Waltrip could barely choke out words of thanks after he made a dramatic last-lap pass to win the NASCAR Camping World Truck series 250-mile race Friday night at Daytona International Speedway.

Waltrip, who usually announces the truck races, swept past Elliott Sadler in a classic Daytona slingshot pass as the trucks sped into the tri-oval toward the checkered flag in a green-white-checkered, two-lap finish after a couple of big wrecks late in the race.

It came on the 10th anniversary of Waltrip’s greatest and worst day — his win in the 2001 Daytona 500 seconds after his car owner Dale Earnhardt’s fatal crash in turn four on the last lap.

“I’m just so thankful, Waltrip said Friday night, nearly breathless, with tears and sweat gleaming on his face in the glare of the television lights in victory lane. “I want to thank the fans, man. They keep us going. And they’ve just been so good to us. It’s just very emotional and I didn’t know I could push Elliott all the way around there. And I was able to do it.

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Michael Waltrip Takes Emotional Truck Race Win on Earnhardt Anniversary

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Filed under: Clint Bowyer, Jeff Burton, Jeff Gordon, Daytona Int’l Speedway, Chase for the Sprint Cup, Sprint Cup, Richard Childress Racing, NASCAR

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Jeff Burton, with help from teammate Clint Bowyer, swept to victory in the second Gatorade Duel Thursday at Daytona International Speedway.

It was the first Speedweeks victory ever for the veteran driver, 43, from South Boston, Va.

Bowyer was second, followed by Michael Waltrip, Kyle Busch and surprising, unsponsored Brian Keselowski, who got a big push from his little brother, Brad, to become the most unlikely top-five finisher in a Sprint Cup race in quite awhile. Full results are here.

In the first Gatorade Duel, Kurt Busch captured the checkered flag.

“It’s a shame two cars can’t fit in here (in victory lane),” Burton said. “With the way things are going (with the two-car draft), Clint and I decided we were just going to find each other early and it worked out for both of us. For us, it was a great start (to the season).”

Waltrip’s finish put him in his 25th consecutive Daytona 500. Waltrip and Brian Keselowski were the two drivers who raced their way into the 500 by virtue of their finishes in the second Duel.

“They like to put a car together at MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) for the old man,” Waltrip said. “To race in the Daytona 500 is just such a great opportunity. I’m certainly proud we have a fast car. We’re going to be up in the middle of all that mess.”

Bowyer said, “I don’t know if there will be another rule change. It was fun out there. Obviously, you always want to win, but I probably should have made my move a little earlier.”

As Burton took the checkered flag, Trevor Bayne and Jeff Gordon lost control of their two-car draft and Bayne spun into David Ragan, sending them both spinning.

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Jeff Burton Wins Second Gatorade Duel for First Victory at Daytona

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Filed under: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chevrolet, Daytona Int’l Speedway, Sprint Cup, Hendrick Motorsports

NASCAR is asking 200,000 fans to honor Dale Earnhardt this coming Sunday. On the third lap, everyone at the Daytona 500 will be asked to extend three fingers.

The announcer might as well say, “Everyone who thinks Dale’s son will win, please raise your hand.”

The smart money is on Junior. So is the dumb money, the Confederate money and every other bit of currency. Ten years after Dale Sr. died at the track, who doesn’t think the Earnhardt stars are aligning?

“I don’t really get into that hypothetical, fairy-tale ending stuff,” Junior said.

He would like to earn his way into victory lane. Others suspect Earnhardt will do it the old-fashioned way – by relying on the script writers NASCAR hired from Disney.

I normally dismiss conspiracy theorists as having moon rocks for brains, but this isn’t Dealey Plaza or Area 51. This is Daytona International, where a second gunman always seems ready to shoot out the tires of Earnhardt’s competition.

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Smells Like NASCAR’s Cookin’ Up Storybook Win for Dale Jr.

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Filed under: Daytona Int’l Speedway, NASCAR Crashes, Sprint Cup, FanHouse Exclusive, NASCAR

To live in Kannapolis, N.C., during the 20th century was to live in a company town, and if folks there didn’t exactly sell their soul to the company store, everyone lived by the pulse of the massive Cannon Mills, provider of fluffy cotton towels and washcloths to a increasingly cleanliness-conscious nation.

“They had three shifts there — first, second and third,” recalled Martha Earnhardt, Dale Earnhardt’s mother. “When it came time for a shift change at Cannon Mills, a mile or so away, “they had a horn that blew,” she said in a 2007 interview with this writer for Racing Milestones magazine. “You could hear it.”

Ralph Earnhardt, her husband, started his adult life in the mills, but didn’t stick around. He was too independent-minded for that. “He definitely didn’t like being shut up in there,” she said.

“When he and I got married, he was working on the third shift in the mill. He worked in the weave room. That was in ’47. I was 17 when we got married and he was 19. He left the mill not too long after we got married and went to work for a gentleman down here on (U.S.) 29 in a garage. That’s where he learned about building motors and all that.

“But then some of the local guys that raced around here came down, and Ralph worked on their cars. That’s how he got into racing. He didn’t like the mill anyway. It was a place to get out of.”

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Ten Years After: Dale Earnhardt’s Mother, Martha, Shares Memories

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Filed under: Denny Hamlin, Kurt Busch, Daytona Int’l Speedway, NASCAR

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Call it “Dancing with the Cars.” Saturday night’s Budweiser Shootout exhibition was a 200-mph tango of two-car drafts on the newly-paved, super-fast Daytona International Speedway.

In a photo finish, Kurt Busch won a predictably wild NASCAR opener on the new $20 million racing surface, pushed to the front by defending Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray a few feet before the finish line. Denny Hamlin took the checkered flag first, but was subsequently black-flagged for dropping below the yellow line on the track trying to pass Ryan Newman at the finish line.

NASCAR ruled the finish Busch, McMurray and Newman. Five-time defending Sprint Cup Series champ Jimmie Johnson and Greg Biffle rounded out the top five.

“What an unbelievable experience,” Busch said.

The race had set a record for lead changes (24) with 12 laps to go — there ended up being 28. The two-car drafts were easily reaching speeds of 206 mph — nearly 15 mph faster than last year’s pole-winning speed for the Daytona 500.

Picking a dancing partner was nearly as important as having the fastest car. And “two-car breakaway” described the entire field. In an intense version of speed dating, Newman was pushed by Hamlin up until the final few feet while just alongside McMurray pushed Busch’s No. 22 Pennzoil Dodge to Busch and Dodge’s first Shootout victory.

“I went to the inside of Ryan Newman and I saw quickly a dart down to the bottom so I moved my car down to the bottom to avoid contact,” Hamlin said. “I thought it was a great three-wide finish, but obviously, I used some pavement that we shouldn’t have.”

Only 14 cars were still in the 75-lap exhibition with 24 laps remaining thanks to a handful of accidents caused when the two-car draft was just out of sync, a case of two left feet.

“There’s plenty of film tonight for the highlight reels that’s pretty much what we’re filling up right now, SportsCenter,” Kyle Busch said after his dancing, er, drafting partner, veteran Mark Martin, hit him from behind too hard and crashed them both out midway through the race.

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Kurt Busch Wins Record-Setting, Blazing Fast NASCAR Daytona Opener

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It was the end of the 1995 Winston Cup season, and Jeff Gordon — “Wonder Boy” — was the new NASCAR champion, set to be formally crowned at the annual banquet at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City.

High up in his lavish suite on the 36th floor, a day before the banquet, the runner-up, Dale Earnhardt, sat down with me and five other motorsports writers for an interview. I was doing a profile of him for Car and Driver, ready to ask him broad, overarching questions about his career, his life and his place in the sport. (Earnhardt and his wife, Teresa, are shown above at his seventh championship banquet in 1994).

It was a time of rapid expansion in a booming sport, with even bigger changes looming. NASCAR was talking about racing in Japan. Bruton Smith, on the fast track to becoming a billionaire, had gone public with Speedway Motorsports, Inc., in February 1995 and would open Texas Motor Speedway in 1997 and Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 1998.

Earnhardt was 44, having completed his 17th full season in the NASCAR Winston Cup series. Less than two weeks earlier, the two-time defending Cup champion (only his 1992 hiccup interrupted what could have been Earnhardt’s own five-in-a-row string) had faced an all-but-insurmountable, 147-point deficit to Gordon going into the final race at Atlanta.

Gordon did his best to choke, stumbling to a 32nd-place finish, 14 laps down, but had such a large points lead it was all over on lap 61, when the 24-year-old rising star led a lap to clinch the title. Earnhardt, meanwhile, drove like a man possessed, and 19 laps later, made one of the classic moves of his career, passing four cars in one fell swoop in turns three and four to blast from fourth place to the lead.

Earnhardt won that race in a runaway — his fifth victory of the year — and even though he didn’t win the title, it was a vintage Earnhardt year. He won the second Brickyard 400 in August and then at Bristol drove like a wild man, barging past anyone and everyone in his way until he got to leader Terry Labonte at the finish and wrecked him, too, though Labonte won it while crashing.

Earnhardt finished the season with 10 straight top-10s — eight of those top fives, including two victories — but couldn’t catch Gordon. The Intimidator was done in by his two DNFs, both at Michigan, including a crash in June that injured his neck and shoulders and left him sore right up to the point of this interview on Nov. 30, 1995. But he was a happy man that day, secure in his life and his sport and still king of his domain, even as the upstart kid was challenging his supremacy.

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Ten Years After: In His Own Words, Dale Earnhardt Reflects on His Life and Career

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Filed under: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Petty Enterprises, Daytona Int’l Speedway

Why is Richard Petty the King? Let us count the ways.

He won 200 races. He’s signed at least a million autographs. He’s 73 years old.

As impressive as those feats are, what makes Petty the greatest driver in NASCAR history isn’t numbers. The King was good enough to win, but wise enough to know you don’t win at all costs.

That’s the big difference between Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr. Sure, we could point to about total victories, win percentage and other arithmetic. But statistics can make any point you want.

Petty and Earnhardt each won seven NASCAR championships, but Petty won 137 more races. He did it pre-NASCAR boom, so Earnhardt fans will argue that it was easier to rack up checkered flags.

There’s some truth to that, but it’s also like saying Babe Ruth wouldn’t have been Babe Ruth if baseball had been integrated and he’d had to play night games.

Petty won 27 of 48 races he entered in 1967, including 10 in a row. I don’t care if he was racing against Danica Patrick’s grandmother, that’s astounding.

The King’s critics will even say that 200th win wasn’t legit. It was a premiere event, the Firecracker 400. Ronald Reagan was in the press box, making him the first sitting president to attend a NASCAR race.

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Richard Petty Remains King of NASCAR

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Filed under: Golf Odds and Ends

The Waste Management Phoenix Open is one of the few PGA events that has the feel of an NFL game or a NASCAR race — not to confuse the two demographics, but both atmospheres have very similar qualities. Huge crowds will again be in attendance, despite weather so cold the pro-am was canceled.

TPC Scottsdale’s par-3, 16th hole is the most exciting hole in golf with bleachers surrounding tee to green. It will serve as the Kodak Challenge hole for the week, which gives it an unneeded boost. Sit back and enjoy the party in Arizona, and keep an eye on these players.

The favorites for this week are familiar names who have started strong in 2011:

1. Phil Mickelson — After a strong performance at Torrey Pines, Phil heads to another course that he loves. With two wins and nine top-10s at this tournament, he is the favorite to win this week. The former Arizona State player will need to tighten up his game off the tee, but his short game looks to be in order.

2. Dustin Johnson — Any personal issues that Johnson might have been experiencing when he withdrew a few weeks ago are not affecting him. He was near the top in every major statistical category last week and finished with a final-round 66, which included no bogeys. With top-10s in both starts this year, it would be a surprise if he didn’t make it three.

3. Hunter Mahan — Last year’s winner should be primed for a title defense. Mahan entered Sunday’s final round last week in the last group, but a double bogey on the opening hole set the tone for day and he finished the Farmers T6. His win in Phoenix a year ago was highlighted by only 12 missed greens the entire week. If he can continue to hit his driver well, expect him to have a lot of birdie opportunities.

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4. Rickie Fowler — He came within one shot of winning here in just the sixth tournament of his rookie year. Fast-forward one year and the young star continues to look for that first Tour victory. Fowler didn’t play as well as his T20 finish last week would indicate. Following his 65 on the easier of the two Torrey Pines courses, Fowler shot 2 over for the remainder of the tournament, but he should feel pretty comfortable this week.

5. Jhonattan Vegas — It’s probably a bit premature to be including Vegas in the short list of favorites, but the rookie has earned it. The Venezuelan entered the 72nd hole last week just one stroke out of the lead and a realistic opportunity for back-to-back wins. The most impressive aspect of his performance was his calm and confidence in a high-pressure home stretch. The FedEx Cup points leader looks like he belongs.

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Filed under: Jamie McMurray, Jimmie Johnson, Daytona Int’l Speedway, Other Racing Series, NASCAR

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The reigning NASCAR and IZOD IndyCar Series champions highlight a star-studded field for the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the Grand-Am Series’ season-opener at Daytona International Speedway this weekend.

But it’s one of sports car’s more traditional names, Porsche, that both five-time NASCAR champ Jimmie Johnson and two-time IndyCar champ Dario Franchitti will be chasing when the green flag drops at 3:30 p.m. (ET) Saturday.

German Jorg Bergmeister will start the No. 45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche from the pole Saturday in the twice-around-the clock event that has again attracted a Who’s Who list of auto racing greats.

Three Indy 500 winners, defending Daytona 500 winner Jamie McMurray (above left) and a potent mix of current and former NASCAR, IndyCar and Formula One drivers are giving it a go against the best sports car drivers in the world on the 3.56-mile Daytona road course.

Johnson and McMurray are trying to join Mario Andretti and A.J. Foyt as the only drivers to win a Daytona 500 and Rolex 24 crown. Johnson will co-drive with former series champs Alex Gurney and Jon Fogarty in the No. 99 GAINSCO Chevrolet and will start 10th in the marquee Daytona Prototype class. They were fastest in Friday’s final practice.

McMurray is part of an two-car wonder lineup for three-time Rolex winner Chip Ganassi Racing. He’ll co-drive the No. 02 BMW with three IndyCar Series champs, Scott Dixon, Franchitti and open-wheel-to-NASCAR convert Juan Pablo Montoya (above, center, chatting with Memo Rojas). They will start fifth among the 18 prototypes .

The other Ganassi car features defending Grand-Am Series champs Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas along with Ganassi’s newest IndyCar driver Graham Rahal and sports car veteran Joey Hand. It will roll off third.

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Star-Studded Lineup For Rolex 24 at Daytona; Porsche Leads the Way

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