Sunday Daytona International Speedway Notebook:
Career Best For Austin Dillon:
A few endured career-best days on Sunday at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, but Austin Dillon needed his career-best finish of fifth to keep him in the battle for rookie-of-the-year against his closest nemesis, Kyle Larson.
Since the season-opening Daytona 500 in February, where the No. 3 won the pole, Dillon hasn’t finished inside the top-10 since. In fact, his best finish leading into the Coke Zero 400 was 11th three times (Bristol, Fontana and Darlington). But, Sunday’s result will in-fact help reigning NASCAR Nationwide Series champion make a dent in Larson’s lead, but maybe more importantly yield confidence moving forward for the Richard Childress Racing team.
“It’s huge for us, getting a top-10; top-five,” said Dillon, who flew in the No. 3 Bass Pro Shops / NRA Museum colors this weekend. “It definitely can change the rookie race, we’ve got some momentum now, and we’ve got the last four races I think in the rookie race and just stay consistent and hopefully we can come out with this thing. Our cars have been really fast all year, we’re getting better. Each week I feel like we’re gaining a little bit and I’m excited about that.”
Of course, Dillon is not only chasing a rookie title, but with his performance Sunday, Dillon advanced to 13th in the championship standings and right now is the last winless driver in the Chase. The pressure to preform has never been greater and the 23-year old driver knows it.
“We jumped from 18th to 13th in points,” added Dillon. “There’s less positions now, but just got to stay consistent. We had a test at New Hampshire this past week. I felt like it was a good test for us, and we go on and try and keep these runs going for us as a rookie, and I think it’ll close up the rookie points now, too. We’ve gained a lot the last couple weeks, and this will definitely help.”
While Dillon’s bid to earn a place in the race for the Chase, a few more runs on Sunday mirrored with some consistency could deliver one of the best rookie showdown the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has seen in years.
Danica Patrick Tallies Another Top-10 At Daytona:
To put it mildly, Danica Patrick had an eventful day at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
Sporting new colors with the Florida Lottery to consign with her traditional GoDaddy insignia, Patrick recovered from a pit stop slop to earn her second top-10 finish of the year.
Despite starting 29th, Patrick hovered near her starting position and avoided the first “big one,” which came a lap before the scheduled competition caution.
Restarting inside the top-15, the Roscoe, Illinois native began her march towards the front. By Lap 70, the Stewart Haas Racing driver had drafted her way to a race-high fourth.
Unfortunately, Patrick lost all that ground and more after overshooting her pit stall during the only green flag stop of the race. She dropped from the top-five to 30th place and quickly became in jeopardy of falling off the lead lap, as she lost the draft, but thankfully a caution on Lap 95 for debris saved her and threw her No. 10 team back into the battle.
Patrick’s surge though would be cut short by Mother Nature, but not before some brilliant driving allowed her to escape a 26-car pileup on Lap 99 with minimal damage.
In the six laps between the final two cautions of the race, Patrick climbed to eighth, tagging her finish in last year’s Daytona 500 after earning her first career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pole.
“The car is fast. It has just been a matter of attrition and getting a little lucky and making it through things,” offed Patrick. “We have been in two crashes and the car has been okay to keep going, which is hard to do here at Daytona because the splitter height is so critical because if it’s a little too low you can’t go the speed you need to because it will just hit the track. We have been really fortunate from that perspective getting a yellow in the middle when I made the mistake on pit road of missing my pit box.”
During the final rain-delay, she was anxious to get her car back on track, but ultimately, like most of the weekend, Mother Nature would prevail.
“On a normal speedway weekend you would say eighth is pretty good let’s just go home with a car that is not too badly banged up, but there is a lot less to lose than normal.”
Patrick climbed to 26th in the championship standings, surpassing boyfriend Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who now trails her by 16 points.
Wrecks Galore:
Superspeedway racing is prone to providing some spectacular wrecks in all of NASCAR and Sunday afternoon didn’t disappoint.
Two separate wrecks on Sunday likely changed the outcome of the Coke Zero 400, but the incidents, however, spawned attention from different teams who deserved it.
On Lap 20, a 15-minute car pileup sparked from the front of the pack after Ricky Stenhouse Jr. broke loose, but then received contact from the No. 14 Tony Stewart heading to the start-finish line, collecting many contenders in their wake.
By the time the dirt from the wet grass and smoke from the screeching tires settled in the tri-oval area, the cars of Stenhouse, Stewart, AJ Allmendinger, Marcos Ambrose, Trevor Bayne, Dale
Earnhardt Jr., Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Larson and Michael Waltrip were involved.
Three-time winner this season and six-time champion Johnson and JTG-Daugherty’s Allmendinger were unable to return to the race and finished 42nd and 43rd respectively.
Think that was big? They weren’t even trying.
On Lap 99 of the race-shortened 112-Lap event, a 26-car melee ensued on the backstretch after Kasey Kahne was tagged from behind and spun into Greg Biffle, causing for the massive colossal.
Kyle Busch received the worst of the incident ending the day on his roof in his No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry.
While Busch emerged unharmed, the day abruptly ended for nearly the entire field. In addition to Biffle, Busch and Kahne, the wreck with varying degrees of damage also collected: Justin Allgaier, Marcos Ambrose, Alex Bowman, Clint Bowyer, Landon Cassill, pole-sitter David Gilliland, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski, Terry Labonte, Joey Logano, Ryan Newman, Jamie McMurray, Paul Menard, Michael McDowell, Danica Patrick, David Ragan, Reed Sorenson, Cole Whitt and Josh Wise.
All drivers were evaluated and released from the infield care center.
Who benefited from the bad luck of others?
Of course, the return of the No. 43 with driver Aric Almirola was huge. Not only for Richard Petty, Richard Petty Motorsports, crew chief Trent Owens, but for Almirola himself. He considers Daytona International Speedway his hometown track.
Casey Mears scored just his third top-10 and first top-five finish with German Racing with a fourth place run; Michael McDowell rebound from the incident to earn a career-best seventh place finish, Ambrose gave Richard Petty Motorsports two top-10 finishes.
Terry Labonte with an 11th place finish grabbed his first top-15 finish since the same event in 2011.
Additionally, the vibrant Alex Bowman driving the No. 23 Dr. Pepper Toyota Camry for BK Racing drafted his way to a 13th-place finish. No doubt his ‘Slip-N-Side’ moment during a wet driver introductions on Saturday night help contributed to his career-best finish in just his 18th career start.
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