Shocking Daytona Winners

Trevor Bayne made history by winning this year's Daytona 500. Trevor was just 19 years old, it was his first Daytona 500 start, and only his second Sprint Cup Series race. No other driver in NASCAR history can say they accomplished that.

Now five months later the NASCAR warriors head back to Daytona International Speedway for the Coke Zero 400, scheduled to be a 160 lap event instead of the Daytona 500's 200 laps. Now the world is talking about how David Ragan winning his first career Sprint Cup series race and first win at Daytona. People are saying David won one of the most exciting NASCAR races at Daytona. He led on four different occasions for 15 laps, including the final two laps. However he didn't accomlish near what Mr. Bayne did. This was Ragan's 163rd career Cup series start, and this was the Coke Zero 400... not the great american race. That #6 UPS Ford has been impressive lately, David was due for a victory to join the others who have won their first race this year.

It was a quiet race with no accidents for most of the event which allowed the drivers to swap the lead lots throughout the race. There was an event-record 57 lead changes and a track-record of 25 different leaders. Once the race was coming to an end the drivers began to make more aggressive passes which caused multiple wrecks. On lap 159 Jeff Gordon got spun out after attempting to dodge Kasey Kahne's car, the #4 car got loose and he had to correct it before he created an even bigger crash than what happened. Mark Martin right away knew someone was going to spin out, so he "backed off" the rear bumper of Jeff Gordon to make sure he wasn't the reason for the #24 car spinning. This caution caused the event to go into extra laps, there was a total of ten extra laps. Jeff Gordon managed to race his way to a sixth place finish after drafting with Kyle Busch for the final ten laps.

As the pack of race cars thundered their way towards the finish line on the final lap there was a wreck in turn 3. Landon Cassill in his #51 car makes contact with the rear bumper of Marcos Ambrose in the #9 car causing him to spin out. Both cars received further damage when they tangled up Brian Vickers and David Reutimann seconds later. Tony Stewart did an excellent job at escaping the scene with no damage. It's simply hard racing since all drivers know that it is the final lap, something is bound to happen when driving 200 mph three wide.

On the same lap another wreck ocurred that was even larger. Kevin Harvick and Paul Menard lost momentum and were slower than the other drafting partners on the outside lane in turn 4. This caused Jamie McMurray to turn his car left into the right side of Dale Earnhardt Jr's car. The #88 National Guard chevrolet came up the track back into McMurray's #1 McDonald's chevrolet. After that cars began crashing everywhere. McMurray came back up the track and hit Montoya, Ryan Newman spun Jeff Burton into Jimmie Johnson, and AJ Allmendinger spun Newman's #39 car.

"The Dinger" was fortunate to receive minimum damage from the incident and was able to drive through the remaining wreckage to a 10th place finish. Tony Stewart was far behind when the collisions happened in turn 4 so it was easy for him to hit the brakes and dodge the wrecked race cars, "Smoke" finished 11th. Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon were lucky to be ahead of the incident when it took place, those drivers finished 5th and 6th. Kevin Harvick and Paul Menard sneaked by on the outside lane before being clipped by McMurray's #1 car. Juan-Pablo Montoya somehow drove his badly damaged race car all the way around the wall to salvage a 9th place finish. There was mayhem throughout the second half of the final lap at Daytona. Kevin Harvick is now your new points standings leader by five points over former leader Carl Edwards. Carl got tangled up with Roush Racing teammate Greg Biffle on lap 23 while coming off of turn 4. However Edwards managed to lead lap 19 for a bonus point.

Coke Zero 400 Results

1. David Ragan

2. Matt Kenseth

3. Joey Logano

4. Kasey Kahne

5. Kyle Busch

6. Jeff Gordon

7. Kevin Harvick

8. Paul Menard

9. Juan Montoya

10. AJ Allmendinger

11. Tony Stewart

12. Brian Vickers

13. Denny Hamlin

14. Kurt Busch

19. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

20. Jimmie Johnson

23. Ryan Newman

24. Regan Smith

33. Mark Martin

37. Carl Edwards

41. Trevor Bayne

Images from: http://www.nascar.com/news/110702/dragan-wins-daytona-redemption/index.html

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Written by: Tyler McMurter