Race Summary
The green flag waved at 1:19 pm Eastern time. The first caution came on the eighth lap with a six-car crash which included Brad Keselowski, Sam Hornish, Jr., Regan Smith, and Boris Said That was the largest crash of the day, as The Big One did not happen, a rarity in recent restrictor plate races. On lap 44, nearly all of the drivers went into the pits. The second caution was on lap 63 when Joe Nemechek spun out. Mike Bliss also spun out on lap 79, bringing out a third caution.
On lap 122, the race was red-flagged for track repair as a result of a pothole that developed in the track surface in turn 2, which lasted for 1 hour and 42 minutes. It was speculated that the recent heavy rain and cold weather in central Florida was responsible for the track damage, as well as the fact the track has not been resurfaced since 1978. The fifth caution of the race came on lap 144, when A. J. Allmendinger spun out. A second red flag was brought out on lap 161 for further track repairs in turn 2 lasting another 45 minutes. On lap 185 Jimmie Johnson lost a rear axle
On lap 194, another caution came out when Elliott Sadler got loose and collected Ryan Newman and Travis Kvapil. On lap 198, Bill Elliott, Joey Logano, and Boris Said crashed, resulting in the first green-white-checker finish attempt. On lap 203, Kasey Kahne and Robert Richardson collided on the back stretch bringing out another caution. Jamie McMurray won the race on the second green-white-checker attempt with Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in second. Jeff Gordon, Robby Gordon, Kurt Busch, Bobby Labonte, Michael Waltrip and Scott Speed were crash in the last corner on the final lap, but NASCAR allowed the race to finish under green. There were 52 lead changes, which made the race one of the most competitive Daytona 500 races in history. The race also served – in terms of both time and distance – as the longest race in Daytona history with the finish under the lights (over six hours including the two red flag stoppages for pothole repairs) and 520 miles (840 km) because of new green-white-checker finish rules that took effect with this race. The ratings also took a huge hit (due to the delays), as it was only drew 7.7/16 on the Nielson Ratings, the lowest ratings since 1991 (affected by the first of a series of pit road rule changes caused by a pit road crash which killed Mike Ritch, a tire changer from the Melling Racing team at the 1990 Atlanta Journal 500 in Atlanta Motor Speedway, when Ricky Rudd slid down and pinned him when he was about to change tires for their driver) and the fourth lowest since the first flag-to-flag coverage in 1979. The ratings for the race, by rule, were calculated as if there were rain delays, although Fox stayed on-air with driver interviews throughout the entire delay.
Read more about this topic: 2010 Daytona 500
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