First there was the Big Wreck, then came the Big Rain, twin calamities that visited Sunday’s Daytona 500, turning NASCAR’s premier race into a used car lot.
Just 15 laps – 37 miles – into “The Great American Race,” the rain began to fall on a field already under caution for a wreck that had caught up 16 cars, nearly a third of the 40-car field. The race was under a weather delay for nearly six hours before it re-started after 9 p.m. Sunday.
The weather curse continues. Last year’s race was so rain-sodden that it required a Monday finish, whereupon Denny Hamlin won his second straight 500 (and third overall) to greatly reduced fanfare.
On that Monday, Ryan Newman was bumped from the lead and sent horrifically airborne in a fiery last-lap crash. Returning to the scene this year, Newman got his wreck out of the way early and was thankfully spared the trip to the hospital. On Turn 3 of Lap 15, Aric Almirola, running near the front, was sent sideways. That meant big trouble for a tightly packed field.
The unluckiest of the spinning cars plowed into the muddy Daytona infield. It all happened just in front of Dawsonville’s Chase Elliott, but the defending Cup champion dove low on the track and was able to avoid entanglement. In all, 16 other cars – which notably included those rides belonging to Kurt Busch, Jamie McMurray, Martin Truex Jr. and Newman – were not so fortunate. Newman was listed as one of six drivers out of the field, with the others waiting to test their damaged cars.
When the race was halted, Kevin Harvick, 2007 Daytona 500 winner and 2014 Cup champion, held the lead. Elliott was fifth.
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