Running at Daytona

Marlin in contention for third Great American Race victory

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Ticker) -- Sterling Marlin is 100 miles away from his third Daytona 500 victory as the leader at the 400-mile mark.

Marlin led Kurt Busch, Elliott Sadler and defending Daytona 500 winner Michael Waltrip on the 160th lap.

A major 17-car crash in the first turn on lap 149 decimated the field and took out some of the major competitors. Kevin Harvick, running second at the time, tried to block Jeff Gordon's Chevrolet entering the first turn.

Harvick's car dipped below the yellow line that separates the racing surface from the apron and it shot up the race track in front of the field. The other cars had nowhere to go. Kenny Wallace's Chevrolet caught on fire. Other cars involved in the crash included Ken Schrader, Joe Nemechek, Rudd, Bobby Labonte, Jimmie Johnson, Johnny Benson Jr., Jeremy Mayfield, Bobby Hamilton, Jerry Nadeau, Robert Pressley, Matt Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr., John Andretti, Casey Atwood, Mike Wallace and Todd Bodine.

"Jeff Gordon wanted to get in the same spot I wanted, we bobbled and all hell broke loose," Harvick said. "The one downfall to this package is you have to block. I came down, we got together and I wrecked."

Nemechek had nowhere to go because his vision was obscured.

"I couldn't tell you, when I got there it was all smoke and my spotters couldn't see anything," Nemechek said. "When I got Jr., who earlier in the race crashed in the second turn on the 21st lap, had another mishap when a rear tire went flat in the fourth turn breaking a brake line on the 95th lap. That sent Earnhardt's Chevrolet sliding through the tri-oval grass at racing speed before returning to the race surface.

The yellow flag flew on the 83rd lap when Dave Marcis, who is driving in the final race of his career, ran out of fuel and stalled in the first turn. That put Jeff Burton in the lead followed by Roush Racing teammate Kurt Busch, Labonte and Mark Martin.

The 2 1/2-mile track claimed one of the pre-race favorites -- Tony Stewart -- early.

Stewart dropped out of the race after his engine blew up on the second lap. Earnhardt was involved in a crash in the second turn on the 21st lap when a right-front tire blew up sending him into the wall with suspension and sheet metal damage.

Stewart won last Sunday's Budweiser Shootout and Friday's International Race of Champions (IROC) season opener. But his engine quit running on the third lap.

"It's the motor, I don't know what happened, it just laid down," Stewart said. "I'm glad I didn't start a wreck, but the motor just laid down."

Rookie Johnson led the 43-car starting field to the green flag to start Sunday's race. But Harvick, who started on the outside of the front row, was the leader after the first lap.

Harvick's lead ended when he was passed by Waltrip in the early laps. Waltrip led Earnhardt and Harvick before Earnhardt crashed on lap 21. Earnhardt's team repaired the car and kept Earnhardt in the race, but his car was no longer capable of winning the race.

The field ran an extra pace lap to start the race after Mike Wallace's Chevrolet stalled on the original pace lap.

The race is being run under ideal weather conditions with bright sunshine as a crowd estimated at 180,000 fans are at Daytona International Speedway.

This is the first Daytona 500 since the death of seven-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt, who was killed when he crashed on the last turn of the last lap in 2001. In that race, only a handful of drivers were wearing head and neck restraint systems, which might have saved Earnhardt's life.

In Sunday's race, all 43 drivers are wearing either the Head and Neck Support (HANS) Device or a similar restraint system called the Hutchens Device. NASCAR made the systems mandatory in October.

The past week of action at Daytona was dominated by two rules changes involving the rear spoilers of the Ford Taurus. The Fords have been relatively uncompetitive in qualifying and the races this year, so NASCAR has allowed the Ford teams to reduce their rear spoiler from 6 1/4 inches to 5 3/4.

The Dodge Intrepid was also allowed to reduce its spoiler to 6 1/4 inches. Chevrolet and Pontiac remain at 6 1/2 inches of rear spoiler.

 

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