As Kevin Harvick and Mark Martin raced the final quarter mile in the Daytona 500 on Feb. 17, just behind them chaos ensued. Seven cars crashed, and others in a pack banged off each other like a pinball game. source: indycar.com / Dave Lewandowski The yellow caution flag wasn't shown by NASCAR's chief steward, and Harvick went on to post his first victory in the event by 0.123 of a second. Everyone from the combatants to their grandmothers has weighed in on the green-yellow decision, including a few IndyCar Series drivers. The finish, close by Nextel Cup standards, wouldn't rank in the top 25 IndyCar Series closest margins of victory. "I think the best thing that NASCAR did was let them run to the line instead of throwing the yellow," said reigning IndyCar Series champion Sam Hornish Jr., who competed in the Busch Series race at Daytona. "The leaders had already gone by. Somebody would have felt disadvantaged if you threw the yellow. When the wreck started, Harvick was leading, then Martin, then Harvick eventually won. "That reminds me a lot of Kurt Busch and I think Ricky Craven a couple years ago at Darlington. Definitely we have a lot more races that are like that. Hopefully people will start to open their eyes to that and see we have exciting finishes 50 percent of the time, if not more." Dan Wheldon, the 2005 IndyCar Series champ, said the chief steward faced a split-second decision. "If that happened with us, I'd maybe expect the yellow to come out," he said. "But it's very close because you've got to be able to react quickly. The people up there that decide that have to react very fast. By the time we come off Turn 4, it's not long until we've passed the start/finish line. "I would probably expect the yellow. I'm sure Mark Martin wished he had the yellow." Wheldon said he expects another tight battle in the season opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway on March 26. He beat Helio Castroneves to the finish line by 0.0147 of a second (the ninth-quickest in series history) last year. "Like everybody knows, it seems to happen a lot in the IndyCar Series," he said. "I think with the way that the rules are going in IndyCars, I think you're going to see even closer finishes. It's very hard when you run that much wing around here to get any disparity between the top car and perhaps the slowest. "I'll be expecting more of the same."
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