Archive for the ‘Wild Ride At Daytona’ Category

Tony Stewart’s stayed up front all day in Saturday’s Drive4COPD 300 Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway his KHI chevy was strong keeping him there.

This will be Stewart’s third consecutive and fifth overall February Nationwide at Dayton that he has won, and showing his dominance on restrictor-plate races in the Nationwide series getting his sixth win. Tying Dale Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the career lead in that category.

“There were some really good cars that got mangled up Saturday,” Stewart said, referring to crashes that damaged the cars of Earnhardt, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski, among others. “We were just lucky to be in front when it happened.”

Kevin Harvick, who owns the No. 4 Chevrolet that Stewart was driving in his only scheduled Nationwide appearance of the year, finished third in his own No. 33 Chevy. Justin Allgaier came home fourth and Brian Vickers fifth.

There was some wild racing and on lap 92, Dale Earnhardt Jr in his #88 Chevrolet went for a wild tumble flipping his car on the backstrech, after Carl Edwards tried to squeeze into a small hole in the outside lane. Edwards made contact with Brad Keselowski spinning him into Earnhardt.

“We were having a real good run, and I felt good about our chances,” said Earnhardt, whose company, JR Motorsports, also owns the car Patrick will drive in selected races this season. “I’ll have to go back and balance the books — it was an expensive day for JR Motorsports.”

After an 11-minute red flag for Earnhardt’s accident, Stewart took command for his 15th win in a stock car at Daytona, moving him into a tie with Cale Yarborough for third all time at the storied track. He now trails only Earnhardt (34 wins) and Bobby Allison (16) for most at Daytona.

“I would trade a couple of them just for a win in a Sunday race here,” said Stewart, who is 0-for-11 in the Daytona 500. He’ll start sixth in Sunday’s main event.

Patrick’s scheduled to run the next two Nationwide races, at Fontana and Las Vegas.

“We’ll go to these other tracks where she’ll literally be driving the car, it’ll be handling good or bad,” Earnhardt said. “Then people can start forming their opinions on what kind of learning curve she has. But I feel pretty confident. She’s been in a tough situation with the media and the pressure and the attention, I couldn’t have done it.”
Nascar.com contributed to this report.