It's finally over. The craziest Dayton 500 I've ever seen, possible that anyone's ever seen. Delayed by rain from Sunday at 1:00 PM to Monday evening at 7:00 pm? OK, I can deal with that. I didn't even finish saying "at least they made it through the first lap without a wre..." WHAM. First wreck. Danica Patrick looked luck, as her car just barely threaded the needle between 2 other spinning cars, but the damage was already done to it, and she finished 39 laps down after lenghty repairs. So much for that much hyped story. Later, after a "typical" incident filled race, and with 40 laps to go, came the Juan Pablo Montoya wreck. Something broke on his car as he was running quickly to rejoin the pack during a caution, and he slammed into one of the jet dryers blowing debris from the track. BOOM! Big eruption of fire from the shattered jet engine as it's fuel ignited after pouring in a river down the banking. Thank goodness Montoya and the driver of the dryer truck were OK, more than I can say for their vehicles! A 2 hour delay ensued as they worked to put out the fire, remove the wreckage, and clean and repair the track. Finally, after midnight, the race entered it's second day, and restarted, after first having a minor scare that it would rain again. A clean restart? Nope. More wrecks. The race finally ended under a green-white-checker finish.
Congratulations Matt Kenseth! The crazy 2012 500 is finally history. On to Phoenix!
I'm sure all the news media will be showing highlights of the wrecks and fire for the rest of the week. Check out Nascar.com for all the details, if you missed the race.
Jet dryer crash video here;
Montoya slams into track dryer, sets it ablaze - NASCAR.COM Video
Now, I'm tired, time to go to bed!
Scott K.