Matt Kenseth Wins the Daytona 500
by Douglas E. Roorbach

For the second time in four months, a championship contest in the sporting world was cut short by rain Sunday. Rather than wait it out and finish another day like baseball did with Game 5 of the World Series, though, NASCAR called the Daytona 500 early, declaring Matt Kenseth the winner after just 152 (out of 200) laps.

Kenseth had assumed the lead of the race seven laps earlier, getting a strong “push” from Kevin Harvick on his bumper and using the aerodynamic advantage it gave to pass Elliot Sadler just a few seconds before a crash brought out the caution flag. That froze the cars’ positions until the rain came just six laps later and NASCAR ended the race with the field still under caution.
Interestingly, in 2007 Kenseth had given Harvick a boost into the lead and Harvick went on to win the race. This year it was Kenseth’s turn.

It didn’t look like it would be for most of the race. Kyle Busch had what most considered the best car, and led the most laps—88. On lap 124, though, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. started a 10-car pileup that took out Busch.

It was the third bad mistake of the day for Little E, who earlier had missed his pit box and then, on a second try, came to a stop with one tire outside the box to draw a one-lap penalty.

Earnhardt compounded those bone-headed moves with his over-aggressive driving. In an attempt to get in position to make up the lap he was down, Junior went low on the track while trying to get past Brian Vickers. Vickers responded by blocking Earnhardt and forcing him even lower, below the double-yellow “out-of-bounds” line. While trying to get back above the line, Earnhardt clipped the back left of Vickers’ car and sent him spinning through the field, collecting victims.

Busch wasn’t too pleased with either Vickers or Earnhardt. “They made their bad day our bad day,” Busch said, adding “…It cost the winning car [his, presumably] the chance to win the race.”
Earnhardt blamed Vickers for blocking him, and said that hitting Vickers was accidental. Vickers said Earnhardt was at fault for driving over-aggressively and spinning him out in front of the field.
The accident wasn’t the only thing that had fans buzzing afterwards. NASCAR’s decision to call the race after a 20-minute rain delay drew a great deal of criticism. The chief complaint afterwards was the anticlimactic nature of the finish, coming on a caution.

Although many veteran observers were pleased for Kenseth—who was coming off a frustrating, winless 2008 season—the consensus was he didn’t deserve to win NASCAR’s equivalent of the Super Bowl.

In 51 years of running the race, this was just the fourth time that rain had shortened the race (the last time was in 2003). As is often the case, television was partly to blame. Fox Sports had insisted on a late-afternoon start for the race, hoping to draw better ratings. That put the race squarely into the path of the early-evening rains and little time afterwards to wait them out.

Most frustrated by the quick curtain was Sadler, who would have won if he had been able to hold off Kenseth for just a few more seconds. “If I would have made a better and smarter move, I’d be in Victory Lane right now,” Sadler said afterwards. “Very hard to swallow. Very emotional.”
Kenseth was emotional, too. When he learned he had won, he burst into tears. The rain washed them away, too.