Kevin Harvick started up front and finished up front in Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway, but what happened in between was a maelstrom of frenetic racing after a series of late-race accidents.
Streaking into the lead on the first lap of a green-white-checkered-finish, Harvick held off Kasey Kahne, Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. to win the rain-delayed Cup Series race.
With more than half the field eliminated or hobbled by a series of spectacular accidents, Harvick crossed the finish line a car-length ahead of Kahne and solidified his hold on the top spot in the Cup standings. NASCAR.com
Harvick, the current points leader, won his second points-paying race at Daytona. His first win here came in the 2007 Daytona 500. He also won the pre- season Budweiser Shootout at Daytona earlier this year.
“This has been a great place for us,” said Harvick, who started on the pole and led a race-high 28 laps. “Daytona has been one of those magical places for us since we started coming here.”
Sam Hornish Jr. triggered a three-car wreck in the final laps, which set up the two-lap overtime finish. Harvick’s Richard Childress Racing teammate, Clint Bowyer, grabbed the lead from Gordon prior to the caution. After the final restart, Harvick moved around Bowyer and took the top position between turns one and two.
“That really wasn’t a situation that we wanted to be in,” Harvick said. “I wanted to be behind [Bowyer] and be able to push him, because it was working pretty good for us. When that caution came out, and we had to split up because of the double-file restarts, I helped him as much as I could, and then we got split up. [Kahne] and [Gordon] split up [Bowyer], and that was it.”
“I don’t really care about the trophy, I want some of that pavement from the start/finish line out there,” he added. MiamiHerald.com
Jeff Burton ran fifth, followed by Carl Edwards, Kurt Busch, Reed Sorenson, Mike Bliss and Scott Speed.
The “big one” accident happened on Lap 149 when there was a sheet-metal crushing, chain-reaction accident between Turns 3 and 4.
Nineteen cars were involved, with so much damage that NASCAR officials stopped the race for 19 minutes, 34 seconds to clean up the mess.
Among the victims was Jimmie Johnson, who started on the outside pole position.
““I got caught up in things,” Johnson said. “We made it 387 miles of not having the ‘big one.’ You could sense it. You could feel it building and sure enough it happened.”
Mark Martin drove half way down pit road with his No. 5 Chevrolet on fire. The car was almost completely engulfed in flames.
When the veteran came to a stop, he bailed out of the car as emergency crews smothered the car. He was not injured in the terrifying blaze.
“The fire was outside, not inside,” Martin said. “Disappointment to wreck as hard as we worked on this car. I wish we hadn’t been in that wreck.” Daytona Beach News-Journal
Among those whose winning chances were destroyed in the wreck were Johnson, Tony Stewart, Juan Montoya, Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Ryan Newman.
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