Last night, David Ragan redeemed himself for his mistake that cost him the Daytona 500 in February. Last night, we saw the two-car drafting again. It proved to be helpful and hurtful. Both Trevor Bayne and points leader Carl Edwards were two of the drivers who fell victim of the tow-car draft. Bayne suffered the most after contact with drafting partner Brad Keselowski, sending Bayne into the outside wall after further contact with the 33 car of Clint Bowyer, who crashed on the last lap. Carl Edwards had gotten spun out by teammate Greg Biffle, getting enough damage to take out the crush panel.
For people who don’t know, the crush panel is on the car to prevent the exhaust from the car to go inside the car. Without the crush panel, your whole car will fill up with carbon monoxide. Most cars have blowers which blow cool air into their helmets. Those blowers have carbon monoxide filters. Carl Edwards didn’t have a blower in his car. Without that blower, Carl potentially put his health in danger while driving the racecar.
Most of the race was pretty uneventful. We saw a lot of lead changes and two-car drafts, seeing Ryan Newman up front the most. When you look at the two-car drafting teams, you saw the obvious team-ups like: Kahne and Vickers, Ragan and Kenseth, Logano and Kyle Busch, Harvick and Menard, Bowyer and Burton; and then we saw some not so obvious team-ups: Hamlin and Newman, Stewart and Gilliland, Keselowski and Biffle (both lost their drafting partners early), Kurt Busch and Smith. In the final laps, both Joey Logano and Kasey Kahne had lost their drafting partners, so what did they do? They teamed up together. They did fairly well considering that they finished 3rd and 4th, respectively, with Kahne pushing Logano to the finish.
Some people still don’t like the two-car draft. I think it makes for more exciting racing instead of all 43 cars under a blanket. Two-car drafting allows you to make up time on the track fast. Look at Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon. With about ten laps to go, they were deep in the field. A handful of laps later, they were both in the top-ten, fighting to get the lead. They both crashed out though. See? Exciting racing!
David Ragan was there from the drop of the green flag to the checkered. He raced like a veteran and he won, with the help of teammate, 2003 NASCAR Cup champion Matt Kenseth. Matt pushed him to the victory, just like David would have done for Matt if the roles were reversed and in the Nationwide race the night before, Joey Logano getting the push from teammate Kyle Busch.
David has had so much heartbreak and he has struggled the last few years, but with this win, I think David saved his job. UPS is in a contract year and if David doesn’t perform, UPS may not come back. I think this win will help propel David farther and help keep UPS on board for a few more years. With his win, David is squarely in the top 20 in points and has the second wild card spot for the chase.
Congratulations David! You earned it!
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