Trevor Bayne, Sprint Cup Rookie, Earns Surprise Checkered Flag at Daytona 500

No odds makers would have taken even money for rookie Trevor Bayne to place let alone win the 53rd Great American Race: The Daytona 500.

But that’s exactly what the 20 year and one day old driver did after being the ‘pusher’ for most of the day. He had various dance partners during the day, but they all faded for one reason or another. In the final few laps, Bobby Labonte became his ‘bud’ and finally teammate Carl Edwards did the final push across the line with David Gilliland in third, giving Ford a top three sweep.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this surprise win is Bayne signing up as a part-time driver with the sports oldest team, The Wood Brothers who hadn’t won a race since 2001.

The race began with polesitter Dale Earnhardt Jr having to drop to the back of the pack, the result of a pre-race practice session wreck.

That handed to point to Kurt Busch along with Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart not far behind. The Daytona ‘TANGO’ of driver and pusher were quickly set up with some obvious strange combos of car makes and non-teammates.

Throughout the event however, Bayne made some excellent choices teaming with Jeff Gordon for a while before latching onto fellow Ford driver David Ragan.

The cars were darting around most of the race and large wrecks were inevitable such as the 17-car incident on lap 30 taking out such notables as Gordon, Mark Martin and Jimmie Johnson, both of whom later returned but many laps down.

All in all, a great race with 74 lead changes that fans will remember for the two-by-two drafting and an unknown kid named Bayne taking the checkers for the Wood Brothers.

Nationwide - This race proved to be a good taste of things to come for Sunday’s 500 as the fast way around were drivers racing two by two. Pick a dancing partner and try to plan things out to come across the line in first.

Such was the case for Tony Stewart as his unlikely partner turned out to be Landon Cassill as they powered by long time leaders Clint Bowyer and Dale Earnhardt Jr. During the final few laps, the four drivers ran nose to tail until in sight of the checkered flag. That’s when Stewart pulled to the high side with Cassill pushing the No. 4 Chevy just enough to nip Bowyer at the line by .007 seconds or about a foot. Interestingly enough, this would be Stewart’s fourth consecutive Nationwide opening event win with Bowyer, Cassill, Earnhardt and Reed Sorensen wrapping up the top five.

Oh, there were a couple of ‘big ones’ in this race like most any other race at Daytona, yet the good news was no one was hurt, other than their rides and wallets.

The best part of the weekend for me was looking at the current points standings for the Nats and Trucks with the new points system in place. No longer are the names of Cup drivers invading the lower ranks at the top of the charts. While they still dominate the accolades and money, they are no longer eligible for points. That being said, Landon Cassill leads the Nationwide series with Reed Sorensen and Jason Leffler among the top three.

Note: Despite starting fourth, Danica Patrick wound up a lap down in 14th, yet managed to lead one lap, a first for any woman at Daytona in a NASCAR venue.

Camping World Trucks–Things were fairly calm in this pick ‘em up opener until later on the race when a pair of big wrecks took out a number of top drivers such as Todd Bodine and Austin Dillon.

When the smoke cleared on this one, Michael Waltrip stood tall among tears to claim his very first truck win 10 years to the day he won his first Daytona 500 while team owner Dale Earnhardt Sr lost his life in turn four on the final lap.

Long time leader Elliott Sadler settled for second with Clay Rogers, Miguel Paludo and Kyle Busch making up the top five finishers. Rogers now heads the charts with Paludo and Jeffery Earnhardt next.

From Rumorville - Look for a big change to the start of next season as the Daytona 500 for 2012 will be on Feb 26, a week later than normal in order to shorten the entire season by one week.

Walmart in NASCAR? Well, you knew it had to happen sometime. Walmart has entered into a marketing agreement with NASCAR to sell branded merchandise along with ticket and ticket packages right from any of their 1500 stores.

That’s it for this week. Next week’s RWR will review the NASCAR outing from out West in Phoenix, preview the Las Vegas venue and report on racing news from around the globe.