Daytona Post-Mortem
Bummer to see the race end due to rain, but I was happy to see Matt Kenseth win. I generally don’t root for Roush teams - with five well-funded teams on the track rooting for Roush feels like rooting for Microsoft - but since NASCAR reconfigured its entire championship structure following Kenseth’s 2003 Championship (a barely veiled way of suggesting he was somehow not a legitimate champion) - I view Kenseth victories as sticking it to The Man.
And even though I like Joe Gibbs and like to see Toyota do well since its the only non-welfare case in the sport, I couldn’t help but be gratified by Kyle Busch getting wrecked. But I was still sorry to see the same fate befall the rest of Gibbs’ teams, especially Logano, though I suspect he’ll do better in Fontana next week.
ESPN Classic showed the 1979 Daytona 500 which I watchd this evening in lieu of the last third of this year’s race. What a difference - stock cars that actually resemble their street car namesakes, pit crews in short sleeves and no safety gear, and a mix of legends toward the end of their careers - Richard Petty, David Pearson, Cale Yarborough, the Allisons - and the young rookies and up-and-comers - Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip, Ricky Rudd. And they showed the post-race fisticuffs between Yarborough and the Allisons, which was nice. Kyle Petty was 18 at the time and had just won a race at Daytona the following week, interesting to see given the elimination of his team this year (and his recent bitter comments about the fate of Petty Enterprises).
Daytona is always fun but as a restrictor plate race I think it told us far less than Fontana will next week about the ability of new teams, from Stewart-Haas to Tommy Baldwin, to compete with the Big Four for wins, berths in the Chase, and ultimately the Cup.