Daytona Keeps On Trucking
The best race so far in Speedweeks transpired on Friday afternoon and Robert
Pressley grabbed his first win anywhere in years – offhand I can only recall him
last winning in August 1993 with Daniel Welsh in Grand National at New
Hampshire.
I had been under the impression that the Trucks did not run ram air hoses at
Daytona, but a race morning rule change indicated otherwise. NASCAR yanked out
one of the two ram air hoses the Trucks run, costing the Trucks some 70
horsepower. The reduction in power helped make for a tight shootout, as the
draft kicked in the strongest it has been all week.
Bobby Hamilton Racing has owned Daytona’s Truck 250 almost from the start. In
2000 Joe Ruttman put Hamilton’s #18 on the pole while Bobby himself stormed to
the lead and appeared to have a slight edge over the heavily favored Jim Smith
Ford of Mike Wallace before crashing. In 2001 Ruttman won the 250. Now in 2002
Robert Pressley took the win on a nifty pass with two to go from third.
The other two Hamilton Dodges also shone brightly, notably Bill Lester, who
made a terrific save in One in a three-wide sandwich but was knocked out in the
backstretch melee.
The Dodges in general were clearly the strongest Trucks. Jim Smith’s Ultra
Motorsports Mopars were stout again, and Carlos Contreras in the Petty Dodge
came home eighth in by far his strongest Truck run to date.
Some of the Chevys offered stout resistance to the Dodge onslaught, notably
Rick Carelli, back with a vengeance in Kevin Harvick’s #6. Ron Hornaday timed
Rick Hendrick’s #24 second and rallied from several problems to finish 12th.
Dennis Setzer stormed to the lead but blew; Mike Bliss took the lead on Lap Two
and ran stout, but also blew; Mike Wallace may have had the strongest Bowtie
after passing 26 Trucks in the opening handful of laps, but also blew.
Of the Ford squadron, only ex-Mopar standout Keselowski Racing had a strong
finish, nailing down sixth with Terry Cook, the only Ford to finish in the top
fifteen. Matt Mullins, seeing Folgers Coffee’s return as a NASCAR sponsor, and
Ricky Sanders were the only other Fords in the top twenty. Of seven Fords in the
field, three were involved in crashes, either on the track or in the pits. Roush
Racing had the worst day, as both of its Trucks crashed – Tim Fedewa off Turn
Four, Jon Wood in a pit collision with Ron Hornaday and later in Turn Four.
In all, there was a competitive depth to the Truck field not seen last year.
If it can be maintained throughout this season, then the series will be in good
shape.
Daytona practices have become rather nasty of late. There was the
Bodine-Hamilton-Burton melee on Tuesday; now before the IROC and Truck features
on Friday Ricky Craven apparently stacked up cars off Two and Terry Labonte,
Kyle Petty, Brett Bodine, and Dave Marcis were collected.
Jimmy Spencer had the quote of the week when he noted that he didn’t have a
veteran driver behind him in his crash, but instead had someone "who
doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing." Uh, that’s supposed to be she,
Jimmy. Jeremy Mayfield for his part was pretty upset with Tony Stewart after the
Twins.
It reminds me of Big Bill France’s 1971 dictum – "Well I guess when
everybody’s upset, then the rules must be right." I guess the competition
must be good when everybody’s ticked off.
But the scariest incident of the week so far didn’t even happen on the
racetrack – a helicopter scheduled to transport Joe Gibbs to a speaking
engagement crashed, killing two. No doubt at least some will say, "Joe
could have been on that chopper." Combined with Robert Yates’ brief heart
scare, and Speedweeks 2002 has been surprisingly stressful on car owners even
without all the rules haggles.