Quick takeaways from the Sprint Unlimited
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida –Throughout the 2016 we may have way too many quick thoughts for our post-race posts. So consider our new Takeaways feature to be the home of our random and sometimes intelligent musings. Sometimes the post may have a theme. Sometimes it may just be a mess of unrelated thoughts. Make sure you tweet us your thoughts after the race or email your post-race rants via the link in the signature line below.
• There was a lot of debris on the frontstretch at Daytona on Saturday night. The main debris victim was Brad Keselowski, who had large pieces of debris on his grille at least twice. The first time Keselowski’s car had debris on the front of his grille, his engine got so hot that the radiator started spewing water and the team had to replenish it.
[Related: Denny Hamlin wins Sprint Unlimited for third time]
The No. 2 team speculated over the radio that the debris was the plastic that construction sites typically use during projects. That explanation makes sense; Daytona recently completed the massive Daytona Rising remodeling project.
And if it was plastic from the newly-finished construction, it’s a bit ironic given the track is using wet wipes instead of napkins at concession stands to cut down on the possibility of debris flying around.
• Dale Earnhardt Jr. was caught up in Brian Vickers’ crash in the first segment and the whole right side of Junior’s car was torn off. But instead of packing it up and heading back to the garage because it wasn’t a points paying event, the No. 88 team fixed up the car and Junior stayed on the track. The man and team love restrictor plate racing. And they probably learned a few things about the draft along the way in addition to some repair techniques.
“If the car can run we want to be out there competing and we stayed out of the way,” Junior, who finished three laps down, said. “We want to compete and finish every lap we can finish. We learned a lot about our crash repair. When we tore the rocker panel off the car we didn’t have a way to mount the door to the car without the rocker, so we understand a little bit more about how to instant repair our car in situations like this. If we knew that stuff we probably wouldn’t have lost that many laps and might have had a chance to get some of them back and get back on the lead lap.”
• The last time the winner of the Sprint Unlimited has won the Daytona 500 was in 2000, when Dale Jarrett did it. Jarrett also won the pole for the 500 that season and finished second in his Duel qualifying race. Denny Hamlin, you’ve got 15 years of history against you.
The win also means Hamlin joins Dale Earnhardt, Tony Stewart, Jarrett and Kevin Harvick as drivers to win three or more Unlimiteds.
• The two fastest lanes at Daytona appeared to be the middle and the top. Drivers in the low lane were able to make moves at times but there didn’t seem to be consistent speed at the bottom. The higher grooves have seemingly become the preferred way to make moves at Daytona; perhaps its because of the rules package on the cars (which was largely unchanged from 2015).
• Kyle Busch said after he was caught up in the penultimate multi-car crash of the night that he saw the wreck was about to happen before it did. Replays backed him up, as the roof cam from the No. 18 made it clear that Busch had backed off the gas considerably before the accident enveloped him. Impressive.
• We should, hopefully, be in for a much calmer Daytona 500 qualifying Sunday than in 2015. The group qualifying format that incited drafting (and a crash) last season is gone in favor of a modified group format that prevents the cars from being able to catch air off each other. And the fastest car, not the one with the best drafting run, will be the one that gets the pole.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
