Fan Stop Central

ESPN.com – Daytona Beach, FL – Trevor Bayne finally made a mistake. Fortunately for him, it didn’t happen until he missed the turn pulling into Victory Lane at the Daytona 500.

The youngest driver to win the Great American Race gave the historic Wood Brothers team its fifth Daytona 500 victory — its first since 1976 with David Pearson — and Bayne did it in a No. 21 Ford that was retrofitted to resemble Pearson’s famed ride.

In just his second Sprint Cup start, the 20-year-old Bayne stunned NASCAR’s biggest names with a thrilling overtime win Sunday at Daytona International Speedway, holding off Carl Edwards after fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. crashed in NASCAR’s first attempt at a green-white-checkered flag finish.

“Our first 500, are you kidding me?” said Bayne, who needed directions to Victory Lane. “Wow. This is unbelievable.”

Unbelievable, indeed.

Just one day after celebrating his 20th birthday and leaving his teenage years behind, the aw-shucks Tennessean who shaves once a week and considers “Rugrats” his favorite TV show captured the sport’s biggest race.

When he found himself at the front, and victory just two laps away, he never thought it would last. Bayne was content just to say he had been leading at the start of the green-white-checkered.

“I’m a little bit worried that one of them is going to come after me tonight,” he said. “I’m going to have to sleep with one eye open. That’s why I said I felt a little undeserving. I’m leading, and I’m saying, ‘Who can I push?”

Bayne thought for sure Tony Stewart or someone else would attempt to pass.

Nobody did.

“We get to turn four, and we were still leading the band,” he said. “It seemed a little bit too easy there at the end.”

The rookie had been great throughout Speedweeks, even proving his mettle by pushing four-time champion Jeff Gordon for most of a qualifying race, a performance Bayne said convinced the veterans he could be trusted on the track.

“I figured they had a chance after seeing that boy race in the 150s,” said Pearson, who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in May. “I talked to him this morning. I told him to keep his head straight and not to do anything crazy. I told him to stay relaxed. I’m proud of him.”

With the win Bayne breaks Gordon’s mark as the youngest winner in Daytona 500 history. Gordon was 25 when he won the 500 in 1997.

“I think it’s very cool. Trevor’s a good kid, and I love the Wood Brothers,” Gordon said. “I’m really happy for him. And I think it’s great for the sport. To have a young talent like that — he’s got that spark, you know?”

The victory for NASCAR pioneers Leonard and Glen Wood ended a 10-year-losing streak and came the week of the 10th anniversary of Dale Earnhardt’s fatal accident on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.

This was only the fourth win in the last 20 years for Wood Brothers — NASCAR’s oldest team — which hasn’t run a full Sprint Cup season since 2006 and hit the low point of their 61-year-old existence when they failed to qualify for the 2008 Daytona 500.

“When you miss a race, like the Daytona 500, it’s like somebody died,” said Eddie Wood, part of the second generation of Woods now running the team. “When you walk through the garage and you run into people you see every week, they don’t look at you, they don’t know what to say.”

The rebuild has been slow, and they got Bayne this year for 17 races, on loaner from Roush-Fenway Racing, the team that snatched him up late last season when Michael Waltrip Racing — which gave Bayne his start in 2009 — couldn’t promise a sponsor for this season.

So it was on to Roush, which plans for Bayne to run for the Nationwide Series title this season, and a deal was made to get him some seat time in the Cup Series with the Woods. It wouldn’t be for points, and he wasn’t eligible to run for rookie of the year.

But the stunning Daytona 500 win — and the $1,462,563 payday — might change everybody’s plans. The team already said it will now go to Martinsville, the sixth race of the season, which had not been on its original schedule.

Bayne could possibly retract his decision to run for the Nationwide title.

“I don’t even know if that’s an option,” Bayne said.

Sunday’s race had a record 74 lead changes among 22 drivers, and a record 16 cautions that wiped out many of the leaders, including Earnhardt Jr. on the first attempt at NASCAR’s version of overtime. It put Bayne out front with a slew of unusual suspects.

David Ragan, winless in 147 career starts, was actually leading the field on NASCAR’s first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish. But he was flagged for changing lanes before the starting line, then an accident that collected Earnhardt in the middle of the pack brought out the caution, and Bayne inherited the lead.

But he had two-time series champion Stewart, now winless in 13 career Daytona 500s, lurking behind with veterans Bobby Labonte, Mark Martin and Kurt Busch, who had collected two previous wins over Speedweeks. All were chomping at the bit for their first Daytona 500 title, but Bayne never blinked, holding his gas pedal down wide open as he staved off every challenge over the two-lap final shootout.

“It was too easy,” Bayne said.

He said he thought for sure he was going to brake, let Stewart in front of him, and push someone else to the win.

Then nobody ever passed him.

Edwards wound up second in a Ford and seemed genuinely happy for Bayne.

“Second place in the Daytona 500 feels way worse than any other position I’ve ever finished in the Daytona 500,” Edwards said. “But that is made better by listening to Trevor and how excited he is. He is really a nice young man, a great guy to represent this sport with this win.

“I think the world’s going to like him a lot.”

David Gilliland finished third and was followed by Labonte and Busch. Juan Pablo Montoya was sixth, Regan Smith seventh, and Kyle Busch, Paul Menard and Martin rounded out the top 10.

Earnhardt Jr. wound up 24th. It was a rough start to the season for Hendrick Motorsports as three of the team’s four cars, including five-time defending Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, were involved in an early 14-car wreck.

Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press

Popularity: 1% [?]

From NASCAR.com

A defiant Clint Bowyer met with the media Friday at Dover International Speedway, insisting that he and his No. 33 Chevrolet team from Richard Childress Racing “did nothing wrong” to earn the whopping penalty it received from NASCAR two days earlier.

Bowyer won the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last Sunday, capturing the opening event of the 10-race Chase to the Sprint Cup. The dramatic victory temporarily vaulted him from 12th to second in the point standings.

“You always want to win races, and you’re very proud to win races, and I’m still proud of that win,” Bowyer said. “I don’t believe that we did anything wrong. I guess I’ll go on record as saying that … and I want my fans to know that.

“There is a lot of integrity that goes into this sport. I’m damn proud to be part of this sport. I love being a part of this sport — and I wouldn’t cheat go win a race in this sport. We have a lot more integrity [than that] with my race team and at RCR.”

Bowyer’s ascension in the driver point standings was temporary because the left side of the rear of his car was deemed too high by a small margin after being taken back to the NASCAR Research and Development Center for further inspection following the race. That led to a 150-point penalty being issued to Bowyer by NASCAR; along with a 150-point deduction for Childress in the owners’ standings; a $150,000 fine and six-week suspension for Bowyer’s crew chief, Shane Wilson; and a six-week suspension for the No. 33 car chief Chad Haney.

The 150-point hit dropped Bowyer from second back to 12th in the championship standings. So instead of trailing leader Denny Hamlin by 35 points with nine races remaining in the Chase, Bowyer now trails by a seemingly insurmountable 185.

The penalties and Wilson’s fine have been appealed, allowing Wilson to work this Sunday’s AAA 400 at Dover, but Bowyer and Childress did not sound like he’s holding out much hope for having them overturned.

“All I am going to ask for is a fair appeal,” Childress said. “That is all I want: a fair appeal. And I have only in the history of RCR don’t think we have been but to maybe three appeals. We didn’t win any of them.”

Bowyer admitted that he and his team had been warned of their car being “too close to tolerances” following the previous week’s race at Richmond, and that at the same time they were told their car would be taken back to the R&D Center after New Hampshire “whether it finished first or 43rd.”

Having established that, Bowyer asked the assembled media why in the heck would his team have attempted to alter the car again?

“After being told they were taking the car, we made double-sure when we were going to New Hampshire that car was right,” Bowyer said. “Who in their right mind — knowing they were going to take that car — wouldn’t have made triple-sure that it was right before going to the race track?”

Bowyer, who ran out of gas while doing a celebratory post-race burnout at New Hampshire, added that he was careful to keep his car in one piece after securing last Sunday’s win.

“I could have hit the wall doing a burnout; I could have done a lot of things a lot of other drivers and a lot of other teams have done in their post-race celebration this year,” Bowyer said. “I didn’t. I didn’t want to push that in NASCAR’s face. We appreciated them warning us on the fact [after Richmond]. They told us about that situation on Wednesday [before New Hampshire] and we tried to fix it. We had about two hours to jump on that car and make sure that thing was right.”

In addition to believing they had done so prior to leaving for New Hampshire, Bowyer pointed out that his car passed both pre- and post-race inspection before failing the more detailed inspection over the next three days at the R&D Center in Concord, N.C.

“How can a car pass pre- and post-race inspection, and three days later get such a huge fine?” Bowyer said. “They take the car apart to make this inspection, and in my opinion that’s not the way the car was raced on the race track. I think that’s something that needs to be said.” … continue reading »

Popularity: 1% [?]

Jimmie Johnson heads to leading the final lap – out of gas! That sends Greg Biffle to the lead, but on the backstretch – out of gas! Mark Martin takes the lead into turn 3, but coming out of turn 4 – out of gas!

But, Jeff Gordon was too far back to overtake Martin and the #5 of Mark Martin took the checkered flag.

What a race and what a last lap!

Popularity: 8% [?]

As always the NASCAR event at Talladega Super Speedway was a wild and wooly affair. To start things off “the big one” - the massive wreck that usually collects nearly every car in the field - came early. Just 6 laps into the race, Matt Kenseth made contact with Gordon as they entered the corner. The bump made Gordon’s car slide toward the top of the track, and the drivers running around them couldn’t avoid it. Kenseth, Gordon, Mark Martin, Kasey Kahne, Kurt Bush, Kevin Harvick, Casey Mears, Jamie McMurray, Scott Riggs, A.J. Allmendinger, David Gilliland, and Brian Vickers were all involved.

But it didn’t stop there. Another “Big One” just nine laps before the end claimed 10 more cars.

But it didn’t stop there, and the fireworks came on the last lap … the last turn … the last 500 feet. Something very reminiscent of Ricky Bobby.

Ryan Newman and Dale Earnhardt, Jr had locked together and were pulling away from the pack on the last lap when out of the middle of the pack, Carl Edwards came flying to the front with Brad Keselowski pushing. They overtook the Newman/Earnhardt train just as they entered the tri-oval. Keselowski looked high, Edwards moved to block which left the bottom open just enough for Keselowski to get the nose of his car under Edwards.

That’s all it took. Edwards came down too far and when right front meets left rear, spinning occurs … and in this case, it included being airborne - which opened the door for the rookie Brad Keselowski to get his first Cup Series win.

Popularity: 10% [?]

The two weeks that span the time between the Super Bowl and the Daytona 500 have to be the absolute worst time of the year for sports fans. It’s just brutal. No football. No great basketball – college or pro (not that there’s a lot of NBA following here). No great golf … and when you’ve got 6 inches of snow on the ground, it makes it kind of tough to get hyped about it. No baseball.

Here’s what we’ve got:

• various regular season basketball (college/pro)
• NHL?
• NBA?
• NASCAR speedweeks
• Golf in tropical and arid climates

And a lot of waiting around for Spring Training to hit, Daytona 500 to kick-off NASCAR, and March Madness to captivate us all.

Popularity: 8% [?]