Motor Racing Digest

 

Posted by: Dave Thompson, follow @phillyfan17

July 8, 2012

Tony Stewart had all the right moves, outlasting the dominant duo of Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle from Roush Fenway Racing to win the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

Stewart made his move around Kenseth on the final lap and crossed the finish line as most of the remaining cars in the field crashed behind him coming out of turn four.

Jeff Burton made an incredible save in turn two of the final lap to avoid late crash, finished second in front of Kenseth, who settled for third.  Joey Logano and Ryan Newman avoided the late carnage to finish fourth and fifth, respectively.

The first half of the race was all green-flag racing with Kenseth and Biffle teamed together to dominate the first 81 laps.

The first caution of the race came on lap 82 when Sam Hornish Jr., a last-minute replacement for the suspended A.J. Allmendinger, blew a rear-tire causing heavy damage to the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Dodge.

During the first caution, a scary moment on pit road ensued as Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman collided while leaving their pit stall after being pinched to the inside by Jeff Gordon.  With the contact, Newman’s car slide sideways into Brad Keselowski’s car as the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge was being serviced in his pit stall.  A NASCAR official and several crew members were forced to acted quickly to avoid the Newman’s on-coming car.

A second caution waved on lap 91 when Kurt Busch lost control of his car while in the middle of a three-wide pack of traffic.  Busch slid up the track and made contact with Trevor Bayne forcing Bobby Labonte off the track while avoiding the incident.

On lap 124, Jimmie Johnson and others had planned to make a green-flag pitstop, but as Johnson slowed contact from Martin Truex Jr. from behind resulted in a multi-car crash near the entrance to pit road.  Johnson’s car went head-first into the inside retaining wall in turn four, ending his evening for his third DNF at restrictor-plate tracks this season.  Several others involved in the accident included, Truex, Gordon, Logano, Michael Waltrip, Bill Elliott and Regan Smith.

A number of cars, including the duo of Kenseth and Biffle, had already entered the pit road entrance when the caution came out but had not crossed the commitment line.  With pit-road closed, Biffle continued down pit road and elected to stop for service, while teammate Kenseth made his way down pit road without stopping.

For his miscue, Biffle was forced to the back of the field for the restart for pitting while pit road was closed.

However, it didn’t take but a few laps before Biffle would catch Kenseth to re-establish the dominant duo that lead for much of the race.  With just 20 laps to go, they had powered their way through the field to run fifth and sixth with the leaders in their sights.

The fourth caution of the race came on lap 144 of the race as Keselowski lost control of his car exiting turn two.

Stewart was the leader on the restart with 12 laps to go.  The tandem of Kenseth and Biffle rocketed past Stewart with eight laps remaining as Kenseth regained the lead.  Within seconds of the lead change, Denny Hamlin, who was among the leaders in the front pack, lost control of his car triggering a 14-car accident that left debris from multiple cars scattered across turn one.  Trevor Bayne, Clint Bowyer, Gordon, Truex, Kyle Busch, Marcos Ambrose and Paul Menard were just a few of the drivers that suffered damage in the incident.

With just two-laps remaining when we returned to green-flag racing, it appeared Kenseth was in position to sweep both races at Daytona this season.  As the pack came out of turn two on the final lap, Kenseth had separated from Biffle and elected to wait for his partner to re-engage with his rear bumper.  That left the door open for Stewart, aided by a huge push from Kasey Kahne, to overtake Kenseth and hold on for the win.

Results of the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona:

Fin	Str	Car	Driver	Team	Laps	Pts	Bpts	Status	TLd	LLd
1	42	14	Tony Stewart	MOBIL 1 / Office Depot Chevrolet	160	47	4	RUNNING	2	22
2	20	31	Jeff Burton	Wheaties Chevrolet	160	42		RUNNING
3	1	17	Matt Kenseth	Zest Ford	160	43	2	RUNNING	3	89
4	19	20	Joey Logano	Dollar General Toyota	160	40		RUNNING
5	2	39	Ryan Newman	Aspen Dental Chevrolet	160	39		RUNNING
6	12	99	Carl Edwards	Subway Ford	160	38		RUNNING
7	3	5	Kasey Kahne	HendrickCars.com Chevrolet	160	37		RUNNING
8	9	2	Brad Keselowski	Miller Lite Dodge	160	36		RUNNING
9	28	55	Michael Waltrip	Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota	160	35		RUNNING
10	41	47	Bobby Labonte	Kingsford Charcoal Toyota	160	34		RUNNING
11	39	10	David Reutimann	CarportEmpire.com/TMone.com Call Centers Chevrolet	160	33		RUNNING
12	5	24	Jeff Gordon	PepsiMax Chevrolet	160	32		RUNNING
13	30	1	Jamie McMurray	Bass Pro Shops / NRA Museum Chevrolet	160	31		RUNNING
14	13	27	Paul Menard	Quaker State / Menards Chevrolet	160	30		RUNNING
15	24	88	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Natl. Guard-An AmericanSalute/DietMntnDew Chev	160	29		RUNNING
16	40	93	Travis Kvapil	Burger King / Dr Pepper Toyota	160	28		RUNNING
17	18	56	Martin Truex Jr.	NAPA Batteries Toyota	160	28	1	RUNNING	1	2
18	7	13	Casey Mears	GEICO Ford	160	27	1	RUNNING	1	1
19	17	43	Aric Almirola	U.S. Air Force Ford	160	25		RUNNING
20	34	32	Terry Labonte	C & J Energy Services Ford	160	24		RUNNING
21	4	16	Greg Biffle	3M Ford	160	24	1	RUNNING	1	35
22	33	36	Dave Blaney	Golden Corral Chevrolet	160	22		RUNNING
23	11	29	Kevin Harvick	Budweiser Folds of Honor Chevrolet	159	21		RUNNING
24	22	18	Kyle Busch	Interstate Batteries Toyota	159	21	1	RUNNING	2	6
25	23	11	Denny Hamlin	FedEx Office Toyota	156	19		RUNNING
26	27	34	David Ragan	MHP 8-hour Alert Ford	154	19	1	Accident	1	1
27	15	21	Trevor Bayne(i)	Motorcraft / Quick Lane Tire & Auto Center Ford	152	0		Accident
28	14	42	Juan Pablo Montoya	Target Chevrolet	152	16		Accident
29	29	15	Clint Bowyer	5-hour Energy Toyota	152	15		Accident
30	10	9	Marcos Ambrose	DeWalt Ford	152	14		Accident
31	32	38	David Gilliland	Glory Foods Ford	152	14	1	Accident	1	1
32	38	83	Landon Cassill	Burger King / Dr Pepper Toyota	151	12		RUNNING
33	8	22	Sam Hornish Jr.(i)	Shell Pennzoil Dodge	149	0		RUNNING
34	25	78	Regan Smith	Furniture Row / Farm American Chevrolet	133	10		RUNNING
35	35	51	Kurt Busch	Phoenix Construction Services Chevrolet	132	9		RUNNING
36	16	48	Jimmie Johnson	Lowe’s Chevrolet	123	8		Accident
37	6	50	Bill Elliott	Walmart Chevrolet	123	7		Accident
38	31	26	Josh Wise	MDS Transport Ford	47	7	1	Transmission	1	3
39	26	30	David Stremme	Stock Car Steel and Aluminum Toyota	25	5		Rear Gear
40	43	49	JJ Yeley	Robinson-Blakeney Racing Toyota	16	4		Overheating
41	36	87	Joe Nemechek(i)	AM/FM Energy Wood & Pellet Stoves Toyota	10	0		Overheating
42	37	33	Stephen Leicht	LittleJoesAutos.com Chevrolet	4	2		Overheating
43	21	98	Michael McDowell	Phil Parsons Racing Ford	3	1		Overheating