JJ Captures the 500!

Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson won the Great American Race, the Daytona 500, a couple of Sundays ago. Congrats Jimmie! The win was the second straight Daytona 500 victory for Hendrick, who won with Jeff Gordon a year ago.

We made our Daytona 500 predictions in this post. So how did we do? Not too shabby! My pick to win, Tony Stewart, finished fifth. I'm disappointed he didn't win, but he can only blame himself. His impatience in Turn Two early in the race damaged not only his race car, but that of Jeff Gordon. Stewart had little reason not to lift off the gas at that point in the race, and let Gordon slide in front of him. Then Stewart further handicapped himself by running over the jack while making a caution-flag pit stop, and he had to restart at the back. Stewart's busy day also saw him wreck the extremely fast Matt Kenseth on the backstretch. Through all that, Tony and his crew worked on his car, and had it running well enough for Stewart to navigate through to a top-five finish!

Our darkhorse pick, Casey Mears, finished second! He was excellent on long runs - a great sign that Casey's getting more skilled at setting up a stock car. Mears never led the race, but he was steady all race long, and looks like a possible top-ten points championship contender. Congrats, Casey!