Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of NASCAR Sprint Cup Cars were torn up in practice. Yet, on Thursday afternoon, there were two clean, hard-fought, 150-mile races in qualifying for the Daytona 500.
The new larger restrictor plate, which gave horsepower back to the drivers, resulted in two interesting races with very small margins of victory. Jimmie Johnson won the first race in the Hendricks Motorsports Chevrolet and Kasey Kahne, in the RPM Ford, won the second. Combined the margin of victory for both races was less than two-one hundredths of a second.
Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch finished second and third respectively, in the first race.
Showing four-straight championship style the Johnson and Chad Knaus crew chief put a back-up car in winner’s circle. Knaus said that it was a combination of keeping good records, putting on the same setup and having Johnson in the driver’s seat that earned them the win.
Johnson said the non-points win was a boost for the whole team even though his margin of victory was .005 seconds, the second-closest finish in recent history of the qualifiers.
“Without a doubt. Again, for myself, I've not won a plate race with the COT. This helps me a lot with my confidence. New guys on pit road, new guys on the team. What we've gone through going to a backup car,” he said.
It was a cold, windy, day. As the day got colder the track appeared to give up greater grip for the second race. As a result the final laps appeared to be a three-way battle between Kahne, Tony Stewart, who finished second, and Juan Pablo Montoya who finished third.
Kahne said “it was exciting throughout the race. If you beat (Tony), you've done something on that day. Whenever I'm having a good day, he's always there, the guy I have to beat”.
"It was a lot of fun. It was fun until (Brian) Vickers screwed me, you know? We were running up front and Vickers, on the restart, got inside of me and it dropped me all the way to the back,” said Montoya, who did bounce back to third.
Qualifying for the Daytona 500 is a complicated formula consisting of top 35 in owner points, fastest on speed and drivers transferring from each of the qualifying races. Max Papis and Michael McDowell transferred from the first race and Mike Bliss and Scott Speed transferred from the second.
Mark Martin will start Sunday’s Daytona 500 from the pole with Hendrick Motorsport teammate, Dale Earnhardt Jr. alongside in Chevrolets, in spots locked in last Saturday.
The new larger restrictor plate, which gave horsepower back to the drivers, resulted in two interesting races with very small margins of victory. Jimmie Johnson won the first race in the Hendricks Motorsports Chevrolet and Kasey Kahne, in the RPM Ford, won the second. Combined the margin of victory for both races was less than two-one hundredths of a second.
Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch finished second and third respectively, in the first race.
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| photo: Éric Gilbert/Motorsport.com |
Showing four-straight championship style the Johnson and Chad Knaus crew chief put a back-up car in winner’s circle. Knaus said that it was a combination of keeping good records, putting on the same setup and having Johnson in the driver’s seat that earned them the win.
Johnson said the non-points win was a boost for the whole team even though his margin of victory was .005 seconds, the second-closest finish in recent history of the qualifiers.
“Without a doubt. Again, for myself, I've not won a plate race with the COT. This helps me a lot with my confidence. New guys on pit road, new guys on the team. What we've gone through going to a backup car,” he said.
It was a cold, windy, day. As the day got colder the track appeared to give up greater grip for the second race. As a result the final laps appeared to be a three-way battle between Kahne, Tony Stewart, who finished second, and Juan Pablo Montoya who finished third.
Kahne said “it was exciting throughout the race. If you beat (Tony), you've done something on that day. Whenever I'm having a good day, he's always there, the guy I have to beat”.
"It was a lot of fun. It was fun until (Brian) Vickers screwed me, you know? We were running up front and Vickers, on the restart, got inside of me and it dropped me all the way to the back,” said Montoya, who did bounce back to third.
Qualifying for the Daytona 500 is a complicated formula consisting of top 35 in owner points, fastest on speed and drivers transferring from each of the qualifying races. Max Papis and Michael McDowell transferred from the first race and Mike Bliss and Scott Speed transferred from the second.
Mark Martin will start Sunday’s Daytona 500 from the pole with Hendrick Motorsport teammate, Dale Earnhardt Jr. alongside in Chevrolets, in spots locked in last Saturday.
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