Track repairs mar Daytona 500

Delays totaling two hours and 26 minutes killed the appetite of a nation full of race watchers Sunday. The Daytona 500 self-destructed in two separate red-flag stints in the last 78 laps of the storied American stock car race, when a section of pavement roughly 18 inches long and 8 inches wide came up in an area prior to Turn Two at famed Daytona International Speedway.

As almost an afterthought to the patience-testing stoppage, Jamie McMurray took the checkered flag. Of course, it required the Sprint Cuppers taking three shots at it to get the final two laps right, in an anti-climactic white-green-checkered ending which saw McMurray hold off crowd favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr., for his first Daytona 500 victory. Not far removed was the irony that Earnhardt Jr. lost to his former team, Dale Earnhardt Inc. (now operating under the Earnhardt Ganassi Racing banner), co-run by his stepmother. Still, his second-place finish was huge, the best showing for the 88 since Little E’s last victory, in 2008 at Michigan.

With 78 laps to go, the race was red-flagged for the first time to repair the troublesome pothole that appeared to chunk up from recent rains. With the delay, commentators announced an astonishing revelation: the track surface at Daytona had last been paved in 1978, 31 years ago! Now, I’m aware that racing surfaces take some time to settle satisfactorily, but 31 years is absurd. Can you imagine Yankee Stadium or Green Bay’s Lambeau Field going 31 years without a surface makeover? I don’t think Derek Jeter would be able to tell a bounding baseball coming at him from the pile of rocks that would invariably surround him under those circumstances.

Another element that uncomfortably arises around such incidents as Sunday’s l-o-o-o-n-g red flag stops is viewer anguish. Many observers, I’m sure, felt gratified that the Olympics were airing simultaneously over on NBC. With the race nearing the three-quarters point, people suddenly and involuntarily were subjected to an hour and 40-minute break in the action—this after being assured by NASCAR officials that the track repair was a sure 12-minute done deal at most. Yet another reason to never believe what NASCAR tells us. And then, 39 laps later, it happens again; this time for 46 minutes! It was an unfortunate development. The race had been full of excitement, with 18 different leaders up to the first red flag. That delicious nail-biting tension, which presents itself at approximately that point in every race, was just beginning to build.

ROADSIDE RANTS: NASCAR makes annual efforts to attempt to improve its sport, like the recent restrictor-plate adjustment and the withdrawal of race official interference with bump drafting that were instituted for 2010—both good improvements. But then it continually shoots itself in the foot, by slipping up on something like not repaving its No. 1 track in more than 30 years! For all the weightless boasts from within the sport crowing about the quality of NASCAR racing, events like the infamous chunk of missing pavement at Daytona provide significant and understandable fodder for critics. And right now, that’s a sin tax NASCAR can’t afford.

Alan Ross is the author of 32 books and a regular contributor to American Profile. E-mail: alanross_sports@yahoo.com
© Sportland 2010