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EVENTS
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
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Crash mars season opener
Updated: Sunday February 18, 2001 10:04 PM
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Tony Stewart's car hurtled through the air like a toy, somersaulting twice before plopping down on top of Bobby Labonte's machine in a fiery mess. All around, there was mayhem -- cars spinning and sliding and slamming into each other. With just 25 laps remaining, one little mistake changed the entire look of Sunday's Daytona 500. Many of the top contenders were eliminated in the 18-car pileup: Stewart and Labonte, teammates and the latter the defending Winston Cup champion. Also taken out were three-time series champ Jeff Gordon, defending race champion Dale Jarrett, and Ward Burton, who appeared to have one of the strongest cars on the track. "It's great racing, it's exciting, there's a lot of passing, a lot of lead changes," Gordon said. "But one little mistake and something like that is going to happen. It's inevitable." Amazingly, no one was seriously injured. Stewart was taken to the hospital with a concussion and complaining of a sore shoulder, but he was alert and talking.
Dale Earnhardt wasn't as fortunate. On the final lap, while Michael Waltrip was pulling away to the first victory of his career, the Intimidator's car touched bumpers with Sterling Marlin, colliding with Ken Schrader and swerving straight into the outside wall. Earnhardt, a seven-time Winston Cup champion and the sport's biggest name, was cut out of his mangled car and rushed to Halifax Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:16 p.m. EST. His son, race runner-up Dale Jr., rode along in the ambulance. The first crash occurred only 25 laps from the end of the 200-lap event, which to that point had been amazingly clean considering the thrilling bumper-to-bumper, side-by-side racing. There had been only two yellow flags, both for minor wrecks. It was the kind of race NASCAR craved after last year's "Bore At The Shore," a Daytona 500 with single-file racing and little passing. It was the kind of race that could lure new fans to the sport as it begins a $2.8 billion television contract with FOX. On lap 175, everything changed on the backstretch. Robby Gordon's car tagged Burton, who then spun into Stewart as the cars raced at more than 180 mph. Stewart's Pontiac flipped at least twice before landing on top of Labonte's car, sparking a brief fire. Sixteen other cars were taken out, as well. "Someone got sideways and I saw a lot of smoke," Jeff Gordon said. "A lot of us had no place to go." Burton was especially frustrated after leading 53 laps in his Dodge, more than any other driver. "You can take the top 15 guys are more and we can sit there and run three abreast just about all day," he said. "All of these guys are great racers, but some of them don't look at the big picture, and the big picture is getting experience, not mixing it up to the point where we get in the wall." Robby Gordon pointed the blame elsewhere. "I was on the bottom, starting to get a little tight," he said. "Tony got up underneath Ward. They seemed to slow down. I don't know if they touched. I got on back of Ward, then they started sliding side by side." Everyone agreed that NASCAR rules create prime conditions for these kind of wrecks. Restrictor plates are used to reduce speeds at the high-banked Daytona oval, but that also tends to bunch up the cars. In addition, new aerodynamic devices were ordered this year to make it easier to pass. "I just hope everyone is OK," Robby Gordon said.
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