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EVENTS
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
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One bad move Nemechek's miscalculation gives Busch win to LaJoie
By John Donovan, CNNSI.com DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Joe Nemechek was setting himself up for one last run at leader Randy LaJoie on Saturday while trying to hold off hard-charging Matt Kenseth in the final big race before Sunday's Daytona 500. Nemechek thought he had enough room to make his move. He thought he could cut off Kenseth and give his teammate, LaJoie, a final challenge on the last lap. He thought wrong. "It's just a tough day," Nemechek said after the NAPA Auto Parts 300, the Busch Series warm-up to Sunday's Winston Cup centerpiece, the Daytona 500. "These days are hard to come by." Nemechek started the day on the pole, withstood a long rain delay and led for 15 of the scheduled 120 laps. With two laps to go, he was sitting in second and drafting LaJoie coming out of Turn 2 at the 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway. That's when his day turned sour. That's when he saw Kenseth and moved across the track to cut off last year's Winston Cup rookie of the year. But some slight contact between Nemechek's back bumper and the front grill of Kenseth's car -- the two cars barely touched, it seemed -- sent Nemechek into a wild spin. "There just wasn't quite enough room there," Nemechek said. Kenseth was able to slip past Nemechek's spinning Pontiac, but Nemechek took out the Pontiac of Jeff Purvis on his way back up the track. LaJoie, in another Pontiac, sped home under the yellow flag with the win. Kevin Harvick was second, while Kenseth finished third. LaJoie earned $96,270 for the victory. It was the third NAPA 300 win for the two-time Busch Series champion. Nemechek's miscalculation was especially harmful to Purvis, who led three different times in the race and led for more laps -- 65 -- than anyone in the 120-lap race. "They always pick on the Busch drivers," Purvis said of Winston Cup drivers like Nemechek, only half jokingly. Purvis is due to run in the 500 on Sunday, though, as is Nemechek. "If I wreck 'em all, they better not say anything." Kenseth, too, saw a wonderful opportunity flash before his eyes when he had to brake hard to avoid the spinning Nemechek. "By the time I knew he was coming back down," Kenseth said, "it was too late." Said Harvick: "Joe just kept coming. That's one of those racing deals." Ironically, it was Harvick that draft-bumped Todd Bodine into a spin earlier in the race, knocking out the youngest of the Bodine brothers after he had made a strong challenge for the front. The race was marred by a rain delay that lasted 1:28 -- the first rain of Speed Weeks -- and some cool, blustery winds that kept speeds down. There were eight different lead changes among six different drivers.
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