NASCAR 2021 Daytona 500

 

I got these die casts for Christmas, as I mentioned earlier.  I’m very pleased with the Chase Elliot car.  The Kevin Harvick car is also nice.  When I’d asked dad for the Chase car, apparently he’d gotten confused at the store and wasn’t sure which driver I liked.  I’d offered to write it down for him.  He assured me that wasn’t necessary.  In fact, he’d almost gotten me a Denny Hamlin car, which would have sent me crying to my room after the most ruined Christmas ever. 

 

In any case, the cars are neat, but I have put in an ethical torture box.  I keep wanting to take the Chase car out of the package to play with.  However, not that these mass market cars from Target are going to be valuable anytime soon, I don’t really have a place to put it in my display cases if I take it out of the package.  I should tack it to the wall next to the rest of my collection.  (I should do a post on my collection someday.  Most of my cars have a little story with them.)  For now, the package isn’t on the wall, but is unopened.  It’s Schrodinger's Die Cast.  Will it be more fun to play with than the practically of leaving it in the package?

 

What a way to start my NASCAR coverage this year.  I really meant to write something after the conclusion of last season, but couldn’t work up the interest.  Other things were going on in November that might have depressed and upset me.  That was even with my favorite driver, Chase Elliot, winning the championship.  (I’m still sort of regretting not buying the 2020 Season Preview magazine with him on the cover, in spite of having several opportunities to buy it.) 

 

Even then, there was a little bit of suspicion about the victory.  Chase had an epic, clutch win at Martinsville to gain entry into the Final Four at Phoenix the next weekend.  There was some question about the legitimacy of the finale when Kevin Harvick, who’d won easily the most races during the season with nine, couldn’t get in.  I’m not even really a fan (though I like my new car and also have a couple of other cool ones of his), but it feels like there’s something intrinsically wrong with this Chase format (as I say that for the hundredth time).

Chase started at the rear of the field at PIR from failing prerace inspection.  I think it was well before even halfway, maybe even during Stage 1, that he was already up front with the rest of the Chasers.  He eventually got ahead of them and won it all.  That’s an unnecessarily terse summary but basically what happened.  Right after the win, Chase took his car to his hometown in Georgia and took a tour through the town.  Cheering crowds lined the streets, as he pulled up to city hall for a ceremony.  It was a nice moment.  I put up Chase Elliot wallpaper on my computer from his win last year at Charlotte.

 

However, I do feel a bit of skepticism.  I doubt Chase worked his way up front so quick without most of the field pulling over for him.  I am sure that the other three Chasers in no way pulled over him, so he definitely beat them.  The four Chasers led the rest of the race without interference from the field.  Much of the last stage was caution-free as Chase cruised to victory.  It was terribly suspicious that there wasn’t some late race drama caution by NASCAR, or else the other drivers simply rode around without really racing.  Jimmie Johnson, in his final full time NASCAR race, came in fifth, right behind the four Chasers.  It was all too convenient to be believed.  It left a bad taste in my mouth.

 

This year, NBC showed three hours of the Rolex 24 sports car race, one hour Saturday starting the race (in between two-man luge and virtual drone racing, not even real drones, virtual) and two hours Sunday to end it.  I did enjoy what I saw.  Jimmie was there racing with one of the teams.  Chase was as well.  Jeff Gordon was there as a past winner wearing his victory Rolex.  Dale Earnhardt Jr. was one of the race commentators. 

 

NBC, who won’t be doing NASCAR coverage until July, did a preseason special afterward.  They did one segment interviewing the champion, Chase.  They spent two segments interviewing Bubba “Noose” Wallace, who’s won nothing but still managed to fail upwards thanks to the political correctness of his statements and actions.  Well, we just figured out what the in-your-face storyline will be all season.  (Hey, you do one fake lynching threat and double down on it after the FBI and NASCAR, both of whom really wanted to prove it happened, say nothing happened, you get a nickname.) 

 

They also went over the new schedule.  We’re all intrigued by the Bristol race ON DIRT!  This could be great or a disaster.  A bunch of new road courses were added.  This may help Chase out, since that’s his specialty.  I am worried that NASCAR may be going in the wrong direction.  Road and street racing series are basically only of niche interest to race fans in this country.

 

My first race of the NASCAR season was virtual.  The eRacing series did their virtual Daytona online this week, which I watched on Youtube.  The race was caution-free, but there was a complete melee going to the finish line.  I’d mentioned iRacing last Memorial Day and how much I enjoyed watching the NASCAR drivers doing it.  I didn’t cover seeing the professional virtual drivers having their finale right before the actual NASCAR finale.  These guys were really intense while driving as there was a bunch of money on the line.  The winner broke down into tears afterward.  The stress of the race, the intense concentration, and the reward had absolutely overwhelmed him.

 

Wait, wait.  Wait-a-minute.  I just reread that last paragraph.  Is it eRacing or iRacing?  I’d swear I’ve seen that both ways.  Let me look it up.  Oh sh*t.  There’s two different virtual racing series.  Which one was I watching, or have I been watching both?  Meh, who cares?  It’s not real racing anyway.  On with the recap.

   

Kyle Busch, who’d had an uncharacteristic poor year in 2020, came out and won the non-points Busch Clash race to start the season.  I unfortunately completely missed it, while I was at work and couldn’t stop to see it.  This might be a sign that Kyle’s more ready to race this season.  I also missed the pole qualifying and Duel races.  Alex Bowman and William Byron will be on the front row in a Hendricks’ lockout.  On Friday, I tried to talk a couple of co-workers into watching the race.  “What would I be watching other than cars making left-hand turns?” I was asked.  “Mostly a bunch of commercials,” I admitted.  I saw the end of the Daytona Truck race later at work, but didn’t recognize anyone in the field.  

 

The Sunday race came with poor forecasts for Daytona and Las Cruces, New Mexico.  After a week of clear 70-degree weather, I woke up to snow here.  When I called dad before the race, he declined wanting to go out to get lunch.  I decided to walk over to McAlisters for a sandwich and then over to his apartment to watch the race.  In the time it took to leave, the weather got worse.  I ended up outside during the worst of the sudden blizzard.  I almost turned around, but I was hungry.

 

Thoroughly numb, I staggered into dad’s apartment 20 minutes later.  I ravished my Spicy Turkey Melt, still wearing my heavy coat.  I don’t think I actually tasted it.  Worse, dad’s reception was somewhat iffy.  (Thankfully, it became clearer later.)  The first thing I heard on the pre-race was that NASCAR would be going to a single lug on their tires next season.  Hallelujah!  Welcome to what every other race series has discovered.  No more loose wheel drama during races.       

 

Clint Bowyer joined Jeff Gordon on the pre-race show.  These two had instant chemistry together during the iRacing/eRacing last year when NASCAR had paused racing.  I think there’s a whole segment, Put it Out, dedicated to them going at each other.  Chris Meyers had a great segment interviewing some children of the drivers.  There were several driver interviews.  Chase Elliot has been officially nicknamed, “The People’s Champion.” 

 

Ryan Newman had a teary interview about his wreck last year, which from looking at my past blog entries, I apparently didn’t cover.  Oops.  Newman had a horrible wreck on the last lap of the 2020 Daytona 500.  He hit the wall, went flying, and got hit by another car while coming down.  That he survived was an impressive testament to NASCAR safety engineering.  That he walked out of the hospital two days later after being put in a medically induced coma was a miracle.  Ryan doesn’t remember the wreck.  He considers that a blessing.  He also keeps the wreckage in his barn, but not display to visitors.  There was no question in his mind that he’d keep on racing.

 

FOX dug up a black guy from somewhere in their sports network to interrogate Kyle Larson, who’s been reinstated into NASCAR after losing his ride during the eRacing/iRacing last year because he used a word that betrayed his musical tastes.  (In other words, Kyle listens to a lot of rap.)  For repentance, Larson took a tour around the country to be shamed by black people before his reinstatement.  He learned from them that they don’t consider themselves equal and probably never will.  It’s kind of sad.  (Was I reading too much between the lines of this interview?) 

 

Noose also had his own virtual racing controversy.  He rage quit a race that he was being sponsored for.  The sponsor fired him over Twitter.  It’s the only good thing Twitter has ever been used for. 

 

Meanwhile, Noose’s car failed inspection twice and was sent to the rear of the field and lost a crew member.  Car co-owner, Denny Hamlin, was asked about this and he said, “One less car to pass.”  Hamlin was going for this fourth 500 win and an unprecedented third-in-a-row.  Right before the race, they interviewed Noose, along with his other co-owner, Michael Jordan.  I didn’t bother listening.  I instead called my Aunt Judy in Missouri to ask her what to do about snow and cold weather.  They’re in single digits there.  She didn’t have a lot of sympathy for me.       

 

Michael Waltrip had a virtual gridwalk, which featured a cutout of him stuck to the front of a camera to go around and bother the drivers with.  Chase saw it and said, “That’s the best version of you.”  Waltrip drolly commented, “Buffy always said I was one-dimensional.”  He’s referring to his ex-wife, of course.

 

There was a crowd allowed in.  I can’t tell you how many.  In places, it looked half full.  The Thunderbirds did the flyover as an Air Force sergeant sang the Anthem.  There was a commercial break afterward which had one for Indian Motorcycles.  Dad commented that they’ve been around a long time.  “I guess they’ll have to change their name now,” he said.  (Hey, you democrats wanted an intersection of sports, politics, and society.  How do you like it?  Should I even bother writing about the race?)

 

During the initial field rundown, William Byron was shown going to the back of the field for an engine problem.  I think Alex Bowman had an issue as well, but decided to stay up front and not fix it.  Half the field was listed as moving to the rear.  I don’t know if that was a mistake in the graphics or really happened.  Jaime McMurray was out of the FOX studio and in the race after two years away from racing.  WWE star and one of my favorites, Sasha Banks, waved the flag to start the race. 

 

During the Lap #3 tribute to Dale Earnhardt Sr., Derrike Cope brought out the caution after blowing a tire and hitting the wall.  Ironically, Cope, something like 60 years old and in his final start, had gotten a past winner’s exemption by beating out Senior for his 500 win.  The Big One happened on Lap 14 as the second (Bowman) and third place (Aric Almirola) cars collided and took 14 cars out with them.  Newman, Byron, and McMurray were among the casualties.  Noose had had to pit after getting hit by Cope earlier.  Annoyingly, he avoided the wreck by being in the rear. 

 

You could see storm clouds in the background right before the race started.  Just as the snow stopped here, there was lightning there right after the wreck, which red flagged the entire proceedings.  A deluge then followed.  Last night, I had been watching an Albuquerque NBC station.  They issued a weather alert about a severe storm.  Ten minutes later, the station went off the air and was still off on Sunday, so there was no turning over to watch hockey.  Pebble Beach is a nice golf course, but I wasn’t interested in watching the PGA today.  I returned home. 

 

I found a dangerous ice patch next to my door.  I spent about 20 minutes trying to clear it from mine a couple of other neighbors’ doors, mostly because the sun doesn’t directly hit the area.  It was a nice workout.  From there, I typed up this and listened to the radio for race updates.  At about 7:00pm, I turned on the TV.  Shockingly, the broadcast was still going and miraculously, the cars were fired up and getting ready to race again.

 

Actually, it was about another half hour before they were racing, so it turned out to be a five-and-a-half hour rain delay.  What other sport . . . Never mind.  When this happened last year, they had to run the race the next day.  Look NASCAR, I’ll speak for the all the fans.  Instead of doing an hour-and-a-half pre-race, which was good, but I’d rather you’d just go ahead and put the cars out on the track and drop the green if you know weather is coming.  You could have gotten half the race in and ended it that afternoon.    

 

Clint Bowyer admitted to the audience that they’ve already recorded a signoff to move the race to Monday.  Another factoid, Jaime McMurray, who was still in the race, was wearing a heart monitor during the race.  He was at 99 beats per minute before the race.  During the wreck, it’d gone up to 150.  That was about the same as Neil Armstrong when he had to suddenly take manual control of his moon landing.  This gives you an idea of the equivalent stress levels.  (I recently saw a documentary about him called, Armstrong.  It’s really good.) 

 

29 cars were on track to take the green flag.  Shortly after, Toyota premiered their Noose-centric commercial, The Dream.  Unfortunately, there was an accident, and they had to cut away from it and then re-premiere it after the clean up.  Wallace races well enough to be in the Cup Series.  He is not receiving undue media attention because he’s black.  Before last year, he was racing in the series and basically anonymous.  Me and other fans had noticed him and thought, Oh, a black guy racing.  Good for him.  Hope he does well.  (Yes, I was actually rooting for him.)  He is receiving all the attention he’s getting now because he’s promoting The Agenda.  Not just saying the right things, but even actually faking incidents and getting away with it in the media (but not with the fans). 

 

Denny Hamlin took Stage 1 very convincingly.  We still weren’t even halfway.  I flipped over to watch All Creatures Great and Small on PBS.  Mom was a big fan of the books and the 70’s TV show.  I read the books last summer and really enjoyed them.  I figured the race wouldn’t even be halfway by the time the show ended.  There was an incident when I got back.  Kyle Larson was briefly in the lead, but got involved in someone else’s wreck.  Hamlin won Stage 2 going away.  When I talked to my dad the next day, this was where he tuned out and figured Denny was going to win easily.  It’s almost like he’d never seen a Daytona 500 before.

 

The critical move of the race happened 30 or so laps before the end during final scheduled pit stops.  The Chevys and Fords pitted in two separate groups.  The four Toyotas all pitted together, but didn’t leave together and Denny basically lost the draft and ended up in the back.  This tragically ended his chances.  He’d dominated and led 98 laps.  The Fords tight coordination put them in front, and they’d also blocked out the Toyotas from pitting with them to put them behind.  Who says NASCAR is just about turning left?  Oh, the tire rule change is going to come a year too late.  Noose had a loose lug and had to come in and went a lap down.  This ended his chances of winning tonight, but he was still mentioned by the broadcasters about 1,500 times before the end.

 

Much of the racing had been single file since Stage 2, which isn’t actually racing, it’s just driving fast.  The tension was starting to mount though.  There was one half-hearted attack on the lead before the final lap, which whittled down the leading Fords from seven to four.  (I feel like I’m describing a Tour de France stage here.)  It was like there was an unspoken gentleman’s agreement amongst the drivers since getting back from the rain delay:  No crazy crap until the last lap.  We don’t want to run a bunch of Overtime laps and make this race go any longer.

 

There were plenty of fast cars in the back.  If they’d teamed up, they could have gotten to the front.  But, that couldn’t happen on the last lap.  They’d have to start that move a couple of laps beforehand.  As it was, all anyone could do was wait for the inevitable melee when the white flag waved.  This was shaping up to be like the scrum end of the Truck race I’d seen on Friday. 

 

Going around final bend, Joey Logano had been leading the Fords.  Michael McDowell bump drafted Brad Keselowski who was in second.  Joey blocked.  Brad and Joey went flying in opposite directions.  A flaming wreck ensued with Kyle Busch plowing into Brad and 2020 Xfinity Series champion, Austin Cindric, plowing into them as well.  NASCAR was forced to throw a caution.  There was a delay while officials determined who was leading when the caution came.  FOX showed the graphic which determined that McDowell was about a car-length ahead of Chase Elliot and had won the 2021 Daytona 500.

 

Michael who?  Many NASCAR fans can’t forget Michael McDowell crash testing the new Gen 5 Car of Tomorrow during qualifying in Texas in 2008.  It’s easily a top 10 NASCAR crash.  The kicker was that McDowell walked away from it and even gave a jaunty wave to the crowd, who loved it.  The COT was a success in safety at least (and pretty much nothing else).  This was his first Cup win and it’s not totally unlikely for that to happen at the Daytona 500.  His car had even been damaged on Lap 14.  McDowell’s apparently a popular driver with the other drivers.  Logano was very gracious when interviewed afterward.  He’s friends with him and happy for him. 

 

It was a nice way to end the race.  Nobody was hurt in the big wreck.  Surprisingly, Shannon Spake and Bobby Labonte were still there in the FOX studio with Larry McReynolds to wrap up the race coverage.  For me, the race started at about 12:45 in the afternoon and ended at about 10:30 at night.  They’d had a long day waiting to finish this one.  I’d missed whatever they’d done in the pre-race.  Shannon looked nice, I think.  The camera was doing social distancing on all the hosts for some reason.

 

Same location next week, but Daytona will be in road course configuration.   If there’s any rain, they’ll put on rain tires and keep going, so hopefully, no late night finishes.  I don’t think I’ll be covering it, since I plan on getting back to Elvis posts, but I do plan on watching.