2012 Daytona 500: Who Will Survive the Pack Draft?

Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout showcased a return to "old school racing" and fantastic wrecking. By the time the checkered flag finally waved on Kyle Bush, all but four cars had been involved in some sort of melee.

Unfortunately, some of the best cars of the evening were taken out of competition along the way.

Joey Logano's No. 20 Home Depot machine had pushed its driver to the front and was in position to make some moves late in the race, but was collected in a wreck with Marcus Ambrose and a few others. Jimmy Johnson's No. 48 Lowes car hadn't been remotely dominant, but had rode the tail of Jeff Gordon to the front. That ended badly as well.

Speaking of Gordon, the four-time champion led the pack as the laps wound down, but ended up riding the roof as the white flag was about to fly, in the most spectacular wreck of the evening.

Fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. also had a car capable of winning, but couldn't steer clear of the carnage. Neither could eventual winner Bush.

"Rowdy," "Wild Thing" Kyle had to save his car from certain annihilation no fewer than three times throughout the two segments to keep himself in position to slingshot around defending champion Tony Stewart for the victory.

Any driver, former driver or crew chief will tell you that winning at super speedways like Daytona and Talladega are as much about luck as skill. Any fan with even a speck of credibility would never tell Dale Jr., Johnson, Gordon, Kurt Bush or Kevin Harvick that they can't drive. That would be just nonsense, considering the combined success of that group.

Yet, all of them found their way to the garage area sooner than hoped, thanks to the careening collection of catastrophe that was the Budweiser Shootout.

So, as qualifying for the Daytona 500 wraps up, is there any real indication of who will win the 54th annual Great American Race? In a word, no.

With the new aerodynamic packages NASCAR has unveiled this year, the two-car tandem that dominated the last couple of years is gone, replaced with the pack drafting that used to be the norm.

For guys like Logano, who has only been a part of the Sprint Cup Series full-time since 2009, this is practically all new racing. Sure, he'd seen the pack draft in '09 and a little in 2010, but by the second half of that season, tandems were already breaking apart the large packs. The majority of his young career (as far as restrictor plate racing is concerned) has been spent figuring out the nuances of finding the right partner to team with at the right time.

Now, it's a different ballgame. There are no friends in this field.

Even grisly veterans like Gordon and Johnson have to re-learn what it's like to maneuver through a large pack, bumping and grinding without wrecking. Forget all about rookies like Danica Patrick and Landon Cassil.

There's a fine line between giving a car a push and sending them catapulting out of control, and as we saw Saturday night, the left rear bumper is a strict "no bump zone." But knowing that and being able to adhere to it are two different things.

The very first wreck of the night demonstrated how touchy the situation is. Paul Menard and David Ragan were hooked together when Menard decided to make a move. Ragan didn't see it coming as Menard's car slipped up the track, exposing his left rear bumper to the nose of Ragan's vehicle. A nine-car pileup quickly ensued.

It's just that easy to get bent out of shape and for a "big one" to wreak havoc on the hopes and dreams of the race teams caught in the storm. To use a quirky hockey analogy, you're watching a demolition derby, hoping a race might break out.

Dale Jr. was having a great race. He'd led a number of laps and showed the ability to move to the front almost at will. Then he got caught up in a wreck he couldn't avoid and his night was done. Skill and horsepower were rendered irrelevant to the goddess of bad luck.

That's the story of Daytona.

Who will win? Who knows?

With 40-plus drivers rocketing around the beach at 200 miles per hour, bumper-to-bumper, and with such little room for error, it really isn't about skill. At least, it has much less to do with skill than most other tracks on the circuit.

It's about being in the right place at the right time, or being at the wrong place at the wrong time. And it's really difficult to know where that place is. Wrecks can happen at the front, as they did in the final crash of the night that sent Jeff Gordon skidding to the apron on his side. They can happen in the middle like the one that took out Ragan and Menard. And riding in the back is no guarantee that you'll avoid getting caught in the accordion effect of something going down in front of you.

Forget qualifying. Forget starting order altogether. The best prognostication toward the victor of this year's Daytona will be nothing more than blind luck.

Honestly, that's kind of what makes this race so much fun to watch.