48 Car Back On Top At Daytona

Photo Courtesy of NASCAR.com

One day after over 30 fans were injured in a massive wreck in the Nationwide race, Jimmie Johnson managed to take home his second win in the famous Daytona 500 on his 400th career start. This is a great day for the five-time champion who has not won a championship in two years and has not finished above 20th since his last Daytona 500 win in 2006. Johnson also managed to run 198 laps more than he completed last year when he was crashed out of the 500 on Lap 2.

The 2013 Daytona 500 saw its fair share of wrecks including a wreck on the last lap that broke out as the leaders were entering the backstretch. However, it was nice that NASCAR did not throw the caution allowing the leaders to race back to the checkered flag making for an exciting ending as Dale Earnhardt Jr. almost race his way to a win with Mark Martin behind him pushing.

The race was also a history making day for NASCAR as Danica Patrick broke numerous records including being the first woman to start on the pole at Daytona, the first woman to lead a green flag lap at Daytona and the highest finishing female to ever run the Daytona 500 with an eighth place finish.

The Daytona 500 also marked the first official points event for the new Gen. 6 cars. However, they were fighting a lack of grip throughout the day forcing drivers to remain mostly single file in the upper lanes of the the track.

Besides the last lap wreck, there were a few other moderately sized wrecks during the race including the first on Lap 33 when Kyle Busch got into the back of Kasey Kahne's #5 Chevrolet which checked up for slowing cars. The wreck took out big names such as Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick, two of the favorites to win the race. A later wreck also took out Carl Edwards who was having a miserable speedweeks where he wrecked five different cars.

On another note, there were also a fair amount of quality issues with the Toyotas with multiple engine issues taking out top-running cars Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch as they were both leading the field. Martin Truex Jr's Toyota also had its engine fail as well.

The race also had many edge-of-your-seat moments as we saw four and five-wide racing in some parts of the track and a late duel between Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski (who managed to survive two early wrecks albeit with a fair share of front end damage). 

Next week the Sprint cup series is in the desert of Phoenix, Arizona starting at 2:30 EST.

The Top Ten:

 1.  (9) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, 200, $1,525,275.
 2. (19) Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chevrolet, 200, $1,104,814.
 3. (14) Mark Martin, Toyota, 200, $817,013.
 4. (15) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 200, $707,855.
 5. (34) Ryan Newman, Chevrolet, 200, $572,771.
 6.  (5) Greg Biffle, Ford, 200, $461,664.
 7. (40) Regan Smith, Chevrolet, 200, $411,822.
 8.  (1) Danica Patrick , Chevrolet, 200, $357,464.
 9. (38) Michael McDowell, Ford, 200, $366,121.
10. (41) JJ Yeley, Chevrolet, 200, $338,738.