2001 Daytona 500: 20 Years Later

[Music] [Music] 43 common men will fire their engines and become capable of performing uncommon deeds they'll race these cars at 190 miles an hour closer together than we dare to park and at the end of 500 miles a million dollars and immortality await the winner 43rd annual daytona 500 is set to get underway terry bradshaw waves the green flag we're racing look at earnhardt right down to the apron to take the lead with jeff gordon pushing him in the 24 card dale earnhardt jr in the red car the 8th car pushing with him change mike skinner who won thursday's qualifying race by four one thousandths of a second jeff purvis bounced off the wall coming off turn number four earnhardt underneath them horade takes him downstairs schroeder leaves this lap jeff gordon assumes the lead earnhardt chomping on his back bumper cuts to the inside stewart's car up in the air and over barrel rolling turning gyrations it's a big wreck on the back doesn't make me a dozen a half cards all connect and collide on the back stretch that car is taking a whale of a ride that 20 car is dale earnhardt jr leads ricky earnhardt michael waltrip mike wallace michael waltrip dreams just of winning this ring anyways to break that big over streak over 462. three wide behind them you got it mikey you got come on mikey you got it man you [Music] [Applause] all right it's race day for the great american race it's exactly what you can hope for for a daytona 500. particularly motorsport fans like myself get amped up for the prestigious daytona 500 event each and every year ever since its inception back in 1959 tickets usually are sold out days before the big event and to many we nascar fans call it the super bowl of stock car racing people far and wide travel to daytona to watch the best of the best duke it out for 500 miles filling up and occupying every space there is unfortunately that streak will come to an end due to the coronavirus pandemic outbreak setting the tone to reduce seat capacity at a low percentage to keep race fans safe for the 2021 edition of the great american race 2021 therefore marks 20 years since that day the 2001 daytona 500 but before we get an in-depth look at this very race for what it was there are some factors that you must know first [Music] the year 2001 was the dawn of a new era for nascar in terms of television deals it was the first year for fox sports as they've stepped on board since then broadcasting nascar events while fox had a deal of broadcasting flag to flag coverage during the first half nbc and tnt took over during the second half we still see that today the only kicker is that tnt was no more with nascar races after 2014. aside from that box did a bang-up job during their first season 20 years ago particularly daytona speedweeks speaking of which speed weeks kicked off with its first race being for what was then the budweiser shootout this race in particular was dominated by tony stewart and dale earnhardt to put it short the race was clean with little to no wrecks in other words the entire race ran caution free in the final stages of the race stuart and earnhardt held their ground to finish one two with stewart claiming the victory fast forward or backtrack to qualifying time trials as we watch dale senior go around the daytona circuit for what would be his final qualifying run practiced at 49.730 seconds he was 15th fastest in practice folks i'm going to watch too is this gap right under here under the air dam that is it tells you if that car is getting the front end down the closer to the ground that gets the closer the track that gets theoretically the faster that car is gonna run and uh quite honestly dale's car doesn't look all that good it's coming the front's coming up a little high right here off the corner uh that's that's where you get that arrow push that we talk about so uh he might have a little work to do there we'll see how he runs [Music] now the first lap will in almost all cases be slower 50. 106 excuse me here for earnhardt 179.6 miles per hour 50.106. for the most part these guys again they're getting that momentum built up they'll pick up anywhere we'll see some cars pick up as little as one or two tents daryl if they run that high line on their first lap they may pick up as much as a half a second well we've seen that here in the past with the old arrow package cars seem to really gain a lot of momentum on that second lap but because of the having to open the grill up a little bit to make the car perform all the drag the car has because of the arrow package i'm surprised to see guys gain much two-tenths has been the norm all through practice earnhardt coming to the stripe to complete his run already he's fastest of the three cars that have been on the speedway [Applause] 49.808 that is a 10th off of what he practiced but 180.694 is the fastest speed thus far qualifying time trials was and still is the way to get in the great american race and of course other racing events on the calendar but it was this race that counted most to all of the drivers and teams the year 2001 saw a total number of 52 cars pushing it to the absolute limit to not only get the best out of the anticipated results with the fast lap times but more importantly secure that first place slot of pole position and on this day it was awesome bill from dawsonville aka bill elliott who did just that clocking in the fastest lap with a pole speed of 183.57 miles per hour four tenths would put him in row two right now i knew rory wasn't very disappointed with that first lap because he he had a pretty optimistic look the best i think he may have been two days or about two months maybe two months oh yeah i'll say he'll be yeah he's happy with that he is fastest today bill elliott looking for his fourth daytona 500 pole 49.029 seconds look at the difference he picked up three quarters of a second well he said 4 10. so it's twice that that driver's been lying to that crew [Laughter] this would prove to be a booster for the veteran having to drive a dodge in the field for the first time and partnering up with the new urban ham motorsports team earlier in the day stacy compton who was also in a dodge entry had spoiler problems as well as a motor change before he got out to do his qualifying lap eventually when it was his turn he shocked everyone with a lap time quick enough to secure p2 alongside elliot making it an all dodge front row a good way of showing that the dodge manufacturer was back better and faster than ever after being absent from the nascar circuit for 15 years what wasn't absent however were the restrictor plates these plates were used to reduce horsepower on the engine slowing the cars down to decrease chances of a serious crash at over 200 miles per hour they were only in use at both daytona and talladega speaking of talladega the fall race from 2000 saw a change to increase aerodynamic efficiency and also better airflow on top of the roof you'll notice a strip that runs right across it what it does is create a bigger hole in the airflow while in the slipstream this allows the car to increase speed with drag being less of an issue of course this wasn't a thing in the previous daytona 500 from that year which is why many drivers had trouble finding the grip in the draft making life difficult for both driver and car therefore the entire race from the 2000 edition had only nine lead changes from start to finish which is considered by many nascar fans as one of the worst 500s in its history but in regards with the arrow strip it was a huge step up for restricted plate racing following the positive feedback it received after the winston 500 at talladega later that year in its debut the same race dale earnhardt won his 76th career cup race the winston 500 that year saw 49 lead changes in total with it lots of aggressive driving left and right some even going below onto the apron but miraculously the race was clean overall with a small number of caution flags while the action-packed racing was really good at the same time it was a cause [ __ ] sun heading into daytona speed weeks 2001. dale earnhardt himself had things to say about it but it's going to be a lot tighter race here at the tighter racetrack daytona's a little tighter than talladega uh they do need to put a outer bounds line down here though in the straightaways maybe three wide is the max and four if you go four wide they black flag you or something but uh it is great racing and uh talladega was a great race for me i don't i don't think you can do that as well as you did did there i don't think you do that here as well as you did at talladega earnhardt was 28th quickest at the end of qualifying time trials but he lined up 14th for his gateway 2125 qualifying race it took him a while to find the front of the pack when he gets there he leads for the majority of the race leading 19 of the 50 laps in the process and route to a podium finish of third finishing on the podium with him was second place jerry nedu who started the 125 and last finishing behind race winner sterling marlin considering marlin was in a dodge it again showed that the dodge cars had the speedy momentum heading into the upcoming daytona 500 race in just a matter of a few days oh and if you all remember this guy named andy houston he drove a clean race compared to the other rookies in the first 125 qualifier using his daytona experience from the truck race the year prior that would prove to pay off as houston finished in fourth place the second 125 qualifier saw dale earnhardt jr being the star of the show considering just like his father he led the most laps which is the same number of 19 out of 50. coming to the checkers he was close but not close enough to gain p4 on the grid for the 500 as that belonged to mike skinner the margin of victory 4 1 000 of a second fun fact skinner's 2001 won 125 qualifying race win marked the fourth and final time he won something in cub competition and all four of those times were non-points paying racing events all the same it was a good result nonetheless for both the driver and team dale jr and jeff burton rounded out the podium finishing second and third respectively the next day the truck series returned to the high banks of daytona even though the previous race had a near fatal accident but nevertheless the drivers from that division conquered the circuit for the second year running early in the race there was the big one but thankfully no one was injured along the way came seven more caution flags but in the end joe lutman scored the win earning a ten thousand dollar bonus after dominating the race from pole position furthermore he did so in a truck bobby hamilton named the freak a bunch of young guys that put together a rocket ship anyone could have won with it but i'd like to thank the dodge dealers for putting up all that money that bobby we're going to take home with us and crew we're going to get some of it he finished third in the daytona 500 a few years back but now you have the trophy you're in victory lane at daytona how does it feel well i wish i could have done it 30 years ago when i was younger but it's an awesome feel because with this with the dana dodge behind me uh anyone could have won with this thing and i'd like to thank bobby hamilton again and and craftsman for putting up that good money for us to try to win finishing behind whiteman was the late ricky hendrick who also had a fast truck throughout the day he almost took out jack sprague in the beginning stages but still kept on trucking on his way to second place following the truck race came the bush series season opener where a 25 year old jimmy johnson was in his second full-time season in this particular division he would go on to finish fifth jeff purvis who had to race his way in the daytona 500 in one of the 125s in which he did was also in this race driving in a competitive car for joe gibbs racing and furthermore he led the most laps out of everybody else in the field of 65 only to finish in 28th kevin harvick started the race from 12th finished in second matt kenseth who won the season opener the season before ranked third rounding out the podium as for the race winner it was two-time bush series champion randy lejoy sealing the deal after coming clutch in the final 12 laps to claim the dub with the bush series space done and dusted all that's left to conclude daytona speed week's 2001 was the super bowl of stockholm racing the daytona 500 why have over 200 000 people today filled daytona international speedway because minutes from now 43 common men will fire their engines and become capable of performing uncommon deeds they'll race these cars at 190 miles an hour closer together than we dare to park and at the end of 500 miles a million dollars and immortality await the winner at last the day finally arrived quarter of a million people showed up to see 43 drivers duke it out for the first 200 laps of the 2001 season in the biggest race on the mass card calendar at the same time some drivers shared their thoughts on what to expect prior to getting started and in some cases how they got here well matt adam petty was the main reason petty enterprise has switched to dodge for the 2001 season they were looking towards the future for the fourth generation driver future that was tragically altered when he was killed may 12th of 2000 at the new hampshire international speedway and so dad kyle has taken over the mission and can you just share with us how important this is and how special this is to be in the daytona 500 in the 45 car yeah you know this this is like um for us you know when we went with sprint and we started our program last year with adam uh then our whole goal was to bring that team to bring chris hussey and that whole group uh to winston cup with adam and it didn't pan out like we we wanted to obviously but uh you know it's it's incredibly emotional to be here it was incredibly emotional to roll through the gate down here uh with the 45 sprint car uh without adam here and it's been pretty emotional all week long a couple autograph sessions i've kind of broke down a little bit we'll have to admit and it'll be emotional when the race starts in church it was a little emotional this morning but uh you know i wish she was here but it's just not thoughts and prayers with you and keep in mind the good vibe that the last time you were at this track was an arca race in 79 last time you were in a dodge and you won well bill elliott has won the poll for the daytona 500 for the fourth time in his career but winning the poll for this race is a matter of one car on the racetrack at a time when they drop the green flag you're going to be in a big crowd is this dodge good enough to run in traffic get you another daytona 500 win well i'd certainly like to hope so you know ray and all the guys have done an excellent job with this dodge intrepid and we'll just see what happens i mean we got 42 guys chasing us in the mirror and it's going to be one wild day for a lot of people to see well a lot of the guys in the garage say he's got the car to beat we'll see to steve burns glad to have you here jeff six o'clock this morning your team was working on the car are you confident that everything is the way it should be oh yeah i feel great i mean uh you know we've got the best engine shop there is and you know we we recognized the problem and and you know fixed it and we got a really strong backup motor in there and uh there's no doubt in my mind this uh dupont chevrolet team can can get that thing ready to go and uh get it out there in championship and winning form best of luck let's go to matt yoakam one year ago steve dale earnhardt less than confident with the current rules package to win his second daytona 500 but he won the last plate race of 2000 and dale looking very strong during speed weeks can you win your second 500 today well we got a good shot at got a good race car uh i wasn't really excited about the car yesterday afternoon the last practice but the car come around i think it's gonna be okay we got a good engine in it but uh a little wind today a little exciting i think it's gonna be some sighting racing to go see something you probably haven't ever seen on fox the seven time champ rolls off seven today the dodge interpeds were the talk of the town since the manufacturer occupied the first three spots on the grid with bill elliot and stacy compton on the front row and former 500 winner sterling marlin fresh from his gatorade 125 race win also in a dodge earnhardt was also forced to be reckoned with considering he was the most odd-on favorite to win also he was the one that won the last which took the play points paying race for the new aero package and only once won the 500 back in 1998 dale earnhardt finally is a champion of the daytona 500. he wasn't old but he was an older seasoned driver and just something about the way he took the track if that makes sense why i don't remember which race it was i could remember that dale had one and after the race you guys slapped her in the track he stopped and got out of his car and walked across the back to his hands at the fence and was waving and i remember him uh reaching through the fence and shaking hands with some of the fans and then just like walking back to his car and everybody just you know at that point we like gathered around him and and you know but i just was like how and you know like whether you thank him or whatever but you know just to have that minute with him i have heard from other people that i know who have seen him race he he would go you know like how they did the meetings ahead of time before the races without the interaction that he would have with his fans and stuff beforehand he went along he'd just come out and he'd take pictures and whatever you wanted and he'd go back into his trailer and that was it so like depending on like his scope like his score or like his numbers like of each race like front like prior to the daytona 01 i would say yes like he like he just deserved like that that top like that fan favorite spot that is like if like even if like just like hypothetic reason that if he won like he was in like first through the whole whole thing despite somebody else winning said race i feel like his push to change the package nascar was all ears with him i'm not saying they did it for him to have an advantage but they definitely knew he's a plate racer they knew he knew what he was talking about they knew they had dale senior their greatest driver at the time basically who jimmy johnson was the last 10 years is complaining about the racing they knew they had to do something just the fact that he was able to make passes make something happen up front finish second in the shootout do well in his duels they knew they were they were in for a treat as for his race team dale and hart incorporated they too play a big part in the race and other which took the play races in future years dale jr and michael waltrip were the key drivers there was also steve park but he didn't quite have the speed on the play tracks compared to his other two teammates nevertheless many other drivers and teams and fans were keen to get going little did they know all that excitement and optimism would later be turned around to sadness and tragedy let's have a look at the ups starting grid for today's daytona 500. bill elliott has his fourth pole for the great race first time in a dodge and stacy compton his first front row start ever row two two-time 500 winner sterling marlin and thursday's qualifying race winner mike skinner pro three jerry nadu having a little fun here last falls atlanta winner and dale earnhardt jr a close second in the twins thursday there's the intimidator dale earnhardt the 98 champion of the 500 and last year's runner-up jeff burke andy houston is a rookie ward burton last year's darlington winner 0-5 in the sixth row former pepsi 400 winner jimmy spencer and rusty wallace who's not yet won a restrictor plate race maybe today pro 7 jeff gordon the 97-99 500 champ and ken schroeder who has seven top ten finishes in this race jason leffler makes his winston cup debut he's out of usac [ __ ] racing and last year's rookie of the year matt gets it jeff purvis in the big dance for the first time in five years and ricky craven who finished third here in 97. michael waltrip fifth in 1999 and dave blaney in his second 500 youngest driver in the field casey atwood aged 20 and mark martin third in 1995 his best finish kenny wallace just picked up a sponsor this morning for that car sick start for the veteran and tony stewart who won six races last year steve park last year's watkins glen winner and kirk bush the rookie from the nascar truck series mike wallace the middle of the three racing brothers from st louis and there's kyle petty carrying son adam's colors row 15. buck shot jones racing for the petties and ricky rudd finished third way back in 81. dale jarrett is the defending champion of the 500 joe nemechek makes his seventh start in this race johnny benson who led last year until five laps to go there he's still saying what happened terry labonte the iceman two time went to cup champ bobby lavon bobby hamilton 11 daytona 500 start and john andretti won here in july 97. there's the winston cup champ bobby lavonny second in 1998 jeremy mayfield ran third in that year's race robert presley makes his 8 500 start and for virginia elliot sadler his third 500. robbie gordon made his winston cup debut here in 1991 the open wheeler joins truck champ ron hornaday finally brett bodine gets the last provisional start the 13-year veteran from new york state [Music] today 43 cars will try to complete the 200 lap 500 mile distance posted awards 11 million dollars steve dale earnhardt is the most prolific restrictor plate driver in nascar history 11 wins and only 52 plate starts he's chasing his second 500 victory looking to bookend what's been a legendary daytona career he was second in the bud shootout third in his 125 today chasing his 35th total victory here in daytona genie is alasko well matt 31st may be the farthest back a defending champ has ever started but for dale jarrett that's just fine for him this is not the daytona 500 this is the daytona 100. he plans on making his move those last 100 laps he just told me he expects trouble out front he has no problem hanging back and waiting to make that move let's all have a good day while you say all right ron hornaday has our conseco cam dale jarrett the ups cam starting 31st ricky rudder texaco javelin on board starting 30th tony stewart the home depot camp sits 24th on the grid mark martin our viagra pfizer cam from 22nd starting spot our napa onboard camera rides with michael waltrip going from 19th position our gm goodrich camp from seventh place with dale earnhardt and the butt cam on board his son's car dale earnhardt jr starts sixth the lowest camera rides with mike skinner from fourth position and will ride with the pole sitter bill elliot in our dodge on board camera [Music] face vehicle is in the 43rd annual daytona 500 is set to get underway terry bradshaw always the green flag we're racing for those two dodgers station got a well of a start and these guys have not been comfortable with their cars i'm actually just to see if they can stay up there yeah and they haven't been on the racetrack together either so that's uh you know that's something set up prior to the start of the day's race what happened to that second row it looked like sterling marlin did not come up through the gear as quickly but when somebody in front of you doesn't go it really backs the field up right on a start like that they're not wasting time they're three wide four wide down to back straight away there goes team mates mike skinner the 31 dale earnhardt the black three i think what we saw the same thing we saw in the 125 the getting a big jump on the restart is not necessarily an advantage from fourth starting spot here comes skinner on the outside trying to lead lap one he's past compton he's caught elliott elliot drops low to lead the first left curly marlins right there too looking on the outside and he's got dale jr pushing him i know bill's intentions are trying to stay up front if he can that's what his plan was i talked to him earlier and he said if i can hold this thing out front that's what i want to do bill elliot and stacy compton fell back early to start the fast and furious number of lead changes elliott led just one lap the whole race which was the opening lap after that he let others duke it out for themselves for that first place position we have every reasonable hope of a record number of lead changes for this race today talking about that win up the back what a driver looked at as his tachometer when he looked down at his back he said i've been turning 7000 all weekend long what have you all done to me i'm 6800 this thing won't run and of course what's the crew keep saying larry i'm telling you you got you've got a headquarters but this is wind wise it's similar to conditions to what these guys had in happy hour so that's one thing that's not a curve thrown at them today sterling marlin in his 20th 500 appearance he's won twice and he's now led in 12 of those 20 starts it don't matter who's leading we've still got a 43 car lead draft jeff gordon has fallen from 13th to 24th earnhardt from 7th back to 13th challenge up front new leader dale earnhardt jr real senior down on the inside making a move on bill elliot as they head down towards turn one this is where the cars have really been aggressive the guys have really been using that bottom uh apron down there to get a position on guys going into turn one it's been kind of breathtaking even up here well if i just started if i'd have been up here [Music] fights his way back to the front earnhardt is leading that high line around mike skinner right behind him and then rookie andy houston sterling marlins back out front again guys that car cruised one thing that 125 win was no fluke it wasn't all about just being in the right place at the right time he's got a pretty fast hot rod there tony stewart trying to climb the ladder he's 19th right now holds alongside jason left with mark martin just in front of him tony stewart has patience written on his dashboard they made it bigger for the race today takes up the whole dashboard today because he is not a patient driver he's a very aggressive driver in just the course of 25 laps three other drivers took turns leading laps dale and hard junior ward burton and sterling marlin who had the better edge at the moment that was until dale enhanced senior made a risky maneuver on the 26th lap to take charge right down to the apron to take the lead with jeff gordon pushed him in the 24 car and dale earnhardt jr in the red car the eighth car pushing with him carol he was down there in the bermuda triangle for a while i'll tell you one thing uh i've been out there when there were two iron hearts there and i've been out there long before now when i thought there was more than one earnhardt on the track i can tell you that [Music] earnhardt has now led in 19 of his 23 daytona 500 starts one lap later rusty wallace and tara labane found the turn three wall and fell out during the beginning stages despite also getting a penalty for speeding on pit road and merging back onto the track a lap down rusty would make a comeback later on meanwhile dale senior relinquished the lead to his teammate mike skinner lee changed mike skinner who won thursday's qualifying race by four one thousandths of a second he has gone to the front seven lead changes in 38 laps last year only nine lead changes in the whole daytona 500. i made this statement a year ago got a little bit of trouble they didn't need seats in the grand stands a year ago they needed to put cots because everybody was gonna go to sleep this year they don't even need seats because nobody's sitting down up here the first caution of the day would come out on lap 49 for a single car incident involving jeff purvis having a tire blowout similar to what rusty wallace encountered earlier because of how hot the track surface was at the time it took a beating on the tires particularly the right front the tires would last up to 40 45 or 50 laps depending on how hard the driver was turning going through the bank turns on this day specifically the tires wore out earlier than expected for some of the competitors which is why a majority of them were stopping in for four new sets well let's just say nascar digital good year did and i have a 2008 indy 500 i mean not indy 500 brickyard 400 show i do feel like for plate race it is kind of strange to have those kinds of tire problems but i will say goodyear didn't totally blow it this time and i command them commend them for that just glad it didn't happen in the daytona 500 or fans might not have showed up to the 500 like they don't show up to indy right now that race could have been known forever as the one of the worst thank god it didn't happen it was really the tires used to go yeah well really quick it reminded me like i was playing like nascar game 2011 where i was racing out like las vegas and like in like i did two times where and the car was just get destroyed at like 20 laps it was just it was ridiculous but it was kind of like that daytona 500 2001. you know the tires were not that good and like the cars would just get really tight and like it will affect the driver's um performance obviously because you know you want to have a a car that you can handle on the car that you um are comfortable with and you don't have that because the tire um it's not good like i remember tony stark saying that goodyear sucks and they should fix their tires and i agree with him on that and of course now they're better obviously but you know like at the time in that race with the new stricter plates and the surface and all those other other factors that could that that's why the tires were not that good in the daytona 500 2001 because it's tire wear and like all those other main factors the thing the thing was you know uh back then was the higher line would conserve tires much more than the lower line um and this was because the lower line um it took a lot more turning and handling in order to keep your car down there and it took less for the outside line now the tire wear is relatively the same between all both lanes because the track's been repaved but back then you know like it was if you were running on the lower part of the racetrack you were really burning your tires especially if you were trying to hold your line from the outside on the restart wood burton took the lead followed by rookie andy houston skinner earnhardt jeff gordon jeff burton mike wallace and sterling marlin as they rounded out the top eight of course with the arrow package that would change in an instant mike skinner who was leading when the caution came out slipped out of the top three finding himself in the mid pack posted a bill elliot was all the way at the back of the bus bill elliot he started on the pole is all the way back to 38th right now way at the tail end i just spoke with his crew chief mike ford asked him what's wrong he said well he's just kind of laying back and i said well is there anything more in that ford looked at me and said i sure hope so at the same time the field continued to jockey for the lead earnhardt in particular was on the move earnhardt underneath him hornaday takes him downstairs thinks better of it good thinking schrader leaves this lap wow sure i'm glad they paid these aprons you know they got them big and wide so good thing ward burton down to the bottom you see hornaday the green car lost a bit of momentum there and his breath and it cost him positions he had to back off the throttle and with that restrictor plate on that carburetor you have to back off it takes a little while to get back up to speed i don't know if earnhardt wants to mess with that bulldog well i don't think he does but i think he also wants to kind of hide himself back in there for a few minutes so maybe earnhardt won't remember who it was because earnhardt would get you for doing stuff like that ron hornaday drove for earnhardt last season and earnhardt let him go when he decided to run three winston cup teams instead of two cup teams in a bush team this is coming in the trial there you see that just the beating and banging on each other trying to break each other's momentum it didn't take but one little lick though for horner today to get up out of the way he didn't want any part of that would you no i've had my taste of that fender and uh every time i ever felt that the next thing i heard was [Music] oh geez lead change again here comes mark martin on schrader court bush who was a rookie at the time also was on the move and they loved bendus coming off of turn four and it made del senia a little intimidated whoa did you see earnhardt bounce off kurt busch yeah and earnhardt stuck his hand out the wind as soon as they come off oh boy that's the lamb and the lion going at it right there it was a welcome to the sport it was a welcome to the sport according to kurt bush now here's the thing kurt busce didn't last that very long in the 2001 500 he like he uh got wrecked by i can't really remember who he got wrecked by when he came up with it bounced our uh that team actually got full got sponsorship that day i believe if i'm not mistaken they didn't have a sponsor the whole week until that until race day they didn't have a sponsor jack roush was like you know we need to get a sponsor on this car and right then kirkbrush got a sponsor but aside from that i would go i would say kurt bush making his 500 debut that having a red car at the end of the day it's just it's just memories you gotta you gotta move on from that until next year hopefully be like hey i got a positive mindset i can actually go for this one from 500 but you know you have to wait what um 16 more years for that to happen just gotta have it i feel like they don't see your then like you know even though this was 20 years ago he really drivers like him really did not give him [ __ ] if you were a rookie or not if you're not giving the veterans room you don't deserve respect i'm not saying kirk bush didn't respect him but if dale seniors giving you the finger you definitely did something wrong i'm not saying elsie was the lord of all racers but i am saying he was well respected on the track and intimidated his opponents that was his way of intimidating her pushing to doing moving out of his way excuse me there it is there it is kurt you're number one you are dale senior was relentless and uh he was an intimidator and when you and uh when you mess with uh uh when you mess with dale senior he's gonna tell tell you it's through you um and i i think it was on lap 85 that it happened um and it's down low and um dale senior tried to go there but the funny thing about it was like he was kind of already there and it was just kind of like kurt bush slid up a little bit but but dale senior was barely in the outside line so the funny thing about that was uh dale senior is kind of dale senior's fault but taylor senior was like you know he gave him the bird uh which is really really really funny because uh he did that's just how dale senior thought you know especially when you get older like you know even if he was in the wrong in that situation he was just like oh mouse screw you like you know that was a tale junior when he was when he was in the race car anyone that was in his way from doing what he wanted to do he was just like screw you so yeah that was a really uh iconic moment especially you know that's the last middle finger he ever gave so you know wood button still held his ground in first place he would be there for some time considering he was the one who led the most laps more than anyone else in the race reading 53 in total fast forward to halfway as the field shakes up doing green flag pit stops bernard will take four tires car owner richard childress is the guy who has made the call that is all the adjustments you're going to see on the hood one of the crew members just nailed it to steve sterling marlon's going to get four tires dick they also took a tear away off the windshield they talked about making a wedge adjustment 14 is out threes out sterling marlins out as well it'll take him a while to get drafted back up and the field comes off turn number four and here is another group coming onto pit road led by mike skinner ken schroeder is coming in there are this time more than a dozen cars in the pit lane kurt busch jeff gordon steve park ricky rudd all making this pit stop rus kenny wallace mike wallace both bill elliot and his teammate casey atwood dave blaney john andretti kyle petty and robbie gordon are all in the pits steve and mike's mike skinner's in they take a tear off the windshield as well four tires they do make a chassis adjustment to the right rear corner of the number 31 left side tires now going on looks like a good stop for mike scooter let's go to dick margaret below yes the pulses are down on pedro this crew is basically the same crew he worked with last year before he changed friends he's out of here after a four tire change wow this will jumble up the field ward burton continues to lead jeff burton his brother once in a dodge one's an afford and here they come to pit road the burton brothers lead this charge in dale earnhardt jr jerry nader mark martin ricky craven andy houston jeremy mayfield matt kenseth and eight more in the pits matt the 22 is in his pit he said his car was just a tick tight his car was much better when out in front the 99s also in a four star four tires stopped for both cars they're going to adjust the 22 slightly with air pressure and air pressure adjustment on the 99 he sat it away he beats the 22 off here road bobby labonte is also in so is dale jarrett dick dale earnhardt jr on pit road they let the rear tire get away from them it's flying out there and bedroom [Music] whoa it almost rolled across pit row they were lucky to grab that thing for it fell over green flag stops continue rusty wallace comes in and brings michael waltrip with him buckshot jones casey atwood is coming back in for a second stop and jimmy spencer and i'm not sure if that is dale earnhardt junior's tire that nascar will not bring him back in for a penalty because if your tire rolls across center line of pit road it is a penalty that was some of the wildest pit stop action i believe i've ever seen cars were everywhere and uh we don't get to make that many green flag stops right most times we'll drag them under cars well i talked about it earlier what i like is that first group it was total melee the next two times that cars was on pit road trouble though for casey out when he came back in to top off the tank and i think take a piece of tape from the grill going to be a penalty on ron hour today for speeding down pip road he'll come in to serve that penalty now i always ask my crew chief larry will you work with the team around us so there's nobody in my way when i come in so i can get in and out one of they stalled the engine on an exit while ago and he it frustrated him so much that he sped down pit road robert presley out as well and there's four-time indy winner and 72 daytona 500 winner aj foyt who owns hornaday's car what happens to a driver guys when he's been out there driving driving driving and he's got his right foot peg when he comes in the clutch foot don't work so well [Music] jeff gordon assumes the lead earnhardt chomping on his back bumper cuts to the inside and skinner will lead this lap from earnhardt by about a foot that's the way it's been all day as the laps wound down the clock was ticking because of it lots of drivers were starting to get aggressive tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick stewart has come up toward that front pack for the first time today winner of the budweiser shootout last sunday jeremy mayfield in the 12th car the blue and white car there he has spent the entire 120 laps i think in the middle of this pack not on the outside not on the inside but in the middle you know why he hadn't been fast enough to go anywhere he just kind of rides in the middle he's he's struggled with that car as bad as i hate to say it all week long because he's a buddy of mine but he has struggled with that car all week long see jeremy mayfield the 12th car he may not be running good but he's worked his way up to fifth position look at him three by three by three by three folks and this is 823 laps into this race and it's just like we just started this is a clogged drain right here pour something down sort this out [Music] at 190 miles an hour steve burns with royce mcgee rookie trucci for mike skinner royce how can you look so calm with the action we're seeing on that racetrack i'm pretty excited inside you just gotta keep you patient cause if i get excited it excites mike a little bit he's the one out there he got business to do and this low chevrolet we're just trying to do the best we can today let's go to matt joachim the 22 cars gone from the front to the back to the front to the back junior watching his car tommy does your car work better out front or behind someone actually it's been pretty good both ways you know we're about four laps ago we fell back to 20. uh we got a bad group of cars they made the car pushed a little bit due to the cars racing very close together as they did it went from this to this big one gang it's the big one it's what we've all been fearing this kind of racing is going to happen a horrible crash on the back straightaway that began when tony stewart got turned sideways against the back stretch wall number 20. jason lefler all torn up the defending cup champion labonte stewart there's fire underneath the hood of bobby labonte's car like anyone else's if that looks around like that that's just that's just scary when i see those types of wrecks i feel like it's fun but then i feel bad for the guys who were in it because they had a good chance of winning now do i have do i say yeah that's good because you know i hate him no i don't feel bad i'm just like oh well you know they always have either next week or they have the july race because going to july they always return to daytona now going now in 2020 they added daytona to august now the big ones i i don't get me wrong i love seeing the big wrecks they always excite me and but when i saw that wreck um when i was watching it myself um on youtube i was like oh boy that that's got to be a bad sight because there's there's and there's no way he's going to be our there's going he's going to be all right but then next thing you know he's going to be like oh i'm going to be in pain which if you've noticed tony stewart his tire came right off use i have never i don't think you see cars with if they're flipping their tire comes off i don't think you see that anymore that's just one after another and once one person hits another and you start to lose your sight because of all the smoke i guess you can't really stop it at that point unless you hit the grass but i just the breath of that accident that you see all of these cars and debris flying everywhere and cars moving now i get that they didn't uh collide with the wall the idea though that all these cars are colliding with each other although that's tony stewart's car hits the wall and one so tony stewart's car hits the wall then rolls over what four or five times and he collides with other cars and it's like it just defies comprehension and it's so sad i don't wish death on him um by saying that it just defies comprehension that he survived this thing given that look he as he lands his car is being hit by another car coming at probably a hundred and some miles an hour but probably well over 100 yeah and even the cars that he lands on like yeah right these drivers heads aren't damaged in any way from tony stewart's onboard camera [Music] that that is something the driver never wants to hear one more angle from mark martin whose car is now all torn up [Music] it's outside real hard [Music] and tony stewart goes for one of the wildest rides in recent memory of daytona to be honest i was surprised just a little bit that the outcome from that wreck wasn't like even back then when safety wasn't the best in nascar i still feel like that car was did its job in protecting tony i remember crash and that crash was scary dude i'm so happy that tony store ended up being okay because a lot of cars went around and tony stewart was like on top of cars and he was rolling and he was in the air you know it was kind of similar to like i always say it was kind of similar to like um the other like some other crashes like some of them like stimulating to like ryan newman at town i think it was like 2009 or 2010 when he was flipped over he landed on kevin harvick no was it yeah it was like kevin harvick or something like that like tony stark was on top of cars like he was like surfing for a second and thankfully he was okay and this was before the safety was really important in nascar but thankfully he was okay if tony god forbid died in that race that would have been the the worst race in history of nascar because that would just suck that would just be the worst that would just be really really disappointing he was like a rookie he was like in the second seat third season in nascar so it's like a win-lose situation you know what i'm saying my reaction to that um i honestly was like i know this stuff like tends to happen in nascar but i was shocked like when usually when i i would think like when the car flips that many times like like said driver would like have like really serious injuries or would like not survive that type of crash so like when he survived i was surprised that uh crash specifically um really kind of it offset people because like everybody was asking the question especially to people that don't know uh racing that well they were like well how the hell did he survive that you know it baffles people um but you know i think that proves that the safety dangers in racing aren't what people think it is you know uh i'm watching the crash right now uh you know yeah he got airborne he got hit and he even got hit while he was rolling a couple times um but from my experience let me uh try to put an image in your head of what really makes a fatal accident okay um and it goes along with inertia and newton's law so you can if you're in a crash and like let's say you you get turned and you're rolling right but as you're rolling right you're gradually coming to a stop as you're rolling because you know once you're rolling your engines out of your car maybe you have no power anymore you're just you're just rolling right and yes like you you might even get hit by another car while you're still moving but you're still moving you know what i mean like you haven't been stopped yet so like even though um you are in complete turmoil uh because you like i said you're still moving and gradually slowing down it's actually much more likely for you to survive that because uh like because you don't have that sudden stop and that goes into what i'm saying next that sudden just stop is i mean it's making me think about it now because i've been in some nasty wrecks myself it's been rather scary um uh though does that sudden stop like when you go from a very fast speed and just stop that's where the fatal stuff happens um and that's why uh tony stewart like tony stewart's big flip was and a crash was unbelievable but it's nothing that we're not used to seeing at uh especially tracks like daytona and talladega like i mean even nowadays with the three by three racing they do i mean we're pretty certain now it's january 5th where we'll be at speed weeks in like a month and a half and we're pretty certain that we're gonna be getting a couple big ones this year uh-huh well i don't we we usually don't avoid them so you know the big one is nothing new you know and the big one does happen a lot but you know i think the last big one injury that we've had was i think there might have been something in the last 10 years but i know that in 2012 uh dale earnhardt jr actually got a concussion from the big one at the end of the 2012 talladega race so you know big ones are still dangerous but you know like i said the sudden stop that's the real dangerous part uh in racing ward burton with the fastest car on the track gets loose and at the same millisecond gets a little tap from behind by robbie gordon burton comes down into tony stewart who hits the wall and gets airborne flipping a couple times then gets hit hard from the back by his teammate barbie labani just like that both joe gibbs racing cars were out in one hit same goes for hendrick motorsports considering all three of the hendrick cars were out as well in total the big one claimed 18 cars with a few number of those who are involved still managing to keep going for the sake of still getting a good points day drivers like robbie gordon mark martin andy houston and jeff gordon share their own perspectives on what happened well i just hope everybody else is okay you know i was on the bottom started to get a little tight tony got up underneath the ward they seem to slow down i don't know if they touched not i got in the back of ward then they started siding side by side and it's unfortunate all of us had pretty good cars at that point mark your battered mount looks pretty tough beating up how about you can you see what happened from your vantage point no all i really saw was smoke and i saw the i think the 20 car way up in the air and i went to the inside and thought i was going to get through there before they came down but somebody hit me in the door and turned me around i hit several different things but you know uh i think we were uh we were sitting okay for with a viagra taurus i think we were gonna gonna be able to get a top 10 out of it maybe but you know the fans got their money's worth today that's all i can say it was laugh after lap after lap and after that last uh restart there with all those cars just bunched together like that it just uh it was a it was an accident looking for a place to happen andy houston is another driver that was involved in that incident he's okay but uh what was it like in the middle of that thing well uh it was really over before it started the mcdonald's ford was running great today had a good run going and had some radio communication there halfway through the race got in the back worked our way back up towards the front i think everybody was just trying to get in position you know to have a good shot at winning that thing there at the end and uh somebody cut somebody off it looked like about five rows up and um track was just blocked i i jumped in the brakes threw my hand up got run into in the back and uh pushed me into a couple guys and uh everybody was just spinning everywhere so uh you know it was pretty wild but uh we'll just go try it again next weekend in rockingham jeff gordon i'm pretty sure you're done for the day oh definitely uh you know it tore this thing all all up you know and uh i had no oil pressure on top of that so i even got hit after i wrecked and i was coming back to the pits but yeah it's unfortunate uh you know something like that's going to happen with these rules it's great racing you know it's it's exciting there's a lot of passing a lot of lead changes but one little mistake you know uh and that's what's gonna happen and it's uh it's it's just inevitable um but everybody did a great job all day long it was incredible racing and i got shuffled back there a little bit and was just trying to work my way back up through there and uh you know doing things that i even i didn't want to do so i'm sure there's other guys that may have done the same thing and i guess somebody got turned sideways up there and caused a pretty big rank did it happen too fast quickly here was it something that a spotter could have told you was coming well he could have told me it was coming before they dropped the green flag today so uh you know i you know it's coming but uh yeah you try to keep your eyes on certain guys and what they're doing but at that particular moment um you know i saw smoke saw a car get turned sideways and and there was you know 15 20 cars or more that were right there so uh there's no getting through that i don't care what your spotter says or where you go it was just like a wall of cars uh you know i'm just glad that uh you know this dupont chevrolet was running real well and that we were having a good day and you know i think we had as good a shot as anybody but uh we'll just go to rockingham ward burton you're standing here with me and you're feeling okay would that be a true assessment physically obviously not mentally yeah i'm fine just uh disappointed can you take us through what happened out there i walked over here and you kept saying to the four car hit me i know you haven't seen the replay but from what you can remember you know we all get runs on each other with the arrow package out there you know we we bunched block hit big holes and uh i had a big run on the guys in front of me but i was gonna stay in line and i guess from what i'm being told the four car hit me somebody just hit me and and didn't didn't use the head enough you know the problem is with this racing the closer we get to the start finish line the end of the race the wilder it gets and uh i just feel bad for my team it gave me a hell of a race car and we were going to have a shot at it but now we're sitting in the garage and not out there running but for the guys that got hurt especially tony i hope tony's okay because of the huge carnage the race was halted while crews cleared the track when the race was back in action only 26 were left to battle it out green flag dale earnhardt jr leads ricky earnhardt michael waltrip mike wallace and pole sitter bill elliot now you might say to yourself well these guys will take it easy to the finish now just hold on to the other side of your seat 15 cars left on the laid lap some of those a little bit damaged really we probably got about nine or ten cars it has no damage whatsoever there were 31 cars on the lead lap before the crash ricky rudd hunting the lead earnhardt though on the outside pushing his son into turn three the last father-son one-two finish in this race bobby and davey allison 1988. for earnhardt and his son dale jr and close friend michael walcher the game plan was to stick together and don't let anybody else pull up and make the pass at earnhardt seniors expense it was his job to hold his ground and protect the first and second place spots that waltrip and dale jr were occupying for dale jr he was ordered to stay in second even when the checkers flew and there was a reason for that when michael waltrip took control of the lead the lead change tally went up to 49 at this rate but minus that not only was mikey holding on for the ride of his life but also trying to accomplish that long-waited overdue first career victory in winston cup level and in this race it was his 463rd start there's a lot to really analyze and a lot to go into when you talk about michael waldrop in his career at this point um heading into the 2001-2500 a lot of people looked at him as a bus they looked at him as a guy that just could never win could never do anything at all and like when dale ended up putting him in the napa car that year people looked at him like have you lost your mind this guy's driven like over four to some races and has never won a freaking race before like why would you pick this guy like out of all the people you could have picked you picked this dude right here but the thing is what a lot of people didn't get though is that dale always believed in michael he always did he always knew in his heart that he could drive and he just felt like he just needed an opportunity that he just needed a chance especially for michael because the fact that he was put on just really garbage teams that really just didn't do and just they really didn't do him any favors for one um but a lot of people at the time had really questioned his talent because they really felt like he wasn't really good but i tell you the truth i think michael waltrip is a much better driver than a lot of people give him credit for he was just given really crappy cars and really bad equipment that really just didn't suit his driving ability and his driving style and he had to go through a lot of hoops just to get a team ready just even be on a team whereas daryl found success right away but for michael it took so long to get the ball rolling for him because he was going through team the team stuff wasn't up to par for him and all that good and all that crappy stuff like it just it just wasn't working for him like it would everyone else but yeah he has started his engine like over like 462 freaking times and it has never been able to win a race but there were times where he was close though some people forget that there were times where he was actually really close and there's times where he was in contention to win a race but stuff just happened to him like engine failures or oil pressure issues or just things that just took him out of good finishes or even a chance of the win or rex or whatever and unfortunately it just it just took him out of it all the time but yeah heading into the 01 when he was put on dei um people just looked at him people looked at him and looked at dale like they were crazy like they just they they didn't know what to think putting him on that 15 to putting him in that 15 car that in napa car but little did they know that he was going to get success right away and he was going to win the first race of the season in the first race he was literally on that team as far as points are concerned for michael waltrip specifically it is a very uh weird uh situation because um you know a lot of people did think that he needed to be in this lower series and that's where he deserved to be and obviously because of his name he was able to kind of was wean his way up the cup so for obvious reasons i see why he got the criticism he got and i won't even like attest to saying there probably was a better candidate for that 15 car at the time but you know you take whatever opportunity you can get and you do it what do what you can do with it and you know michael waltrip positioned himself that day you know he was he was in the lead all he had behind him was dale jr and you know i know for a fact that dale senior had had didn't have to be in between sterling marlin and kenny or schrader he would have been a factor as well but you know um at this time we know that like you know nowadays if you're third going to the last lap of daytona you can pull it off like you can get you can get it get the draft and even when the three wife finish at the line like but back then like you know if you're any less than like even like you know back then at daytona towel dagger you really wanted to be in the lead coming to the line like because all you had to really do was block and blocking back then that daytona was not that hard like it was hard but like it was it's not like it was easy to get a slingshot at daytona back then you know waltrip held bum with the traffic getting dicey behind him michael waltrip dreams just of winning this race any race to break that big opera streak over 462. i don't know if i can stand this or not come on buddy you got two to go come on don't give up just stay under him dale jr just stay under him buddy two to go bud two to go that way the calm voice of the spotter look at joyce reassuring michael walter dale has done sterling has beat the front end offense head on dodge trying to get around dale sterling is there room between earnhardt and schroeder yes he gets to the outside then drops back in line all right here we go now this is when it's going to get tense boys this is when we're going to find out we're coming around for the white flag four chevys a pontiac a forward and a dive to fight it out three miles to the finish of the daytona 500. if he can survive this run he'll be okay nobody's doing anything go get him come on buddy one to go the last lap one to go buddy [Music] keep it low mikey keep it low don't let them under you make that back straight away wide buddy get all over the place don't let them run up on you come on man come on now watch it mirror watch he's gonna make a run inside blocking blocking that'll boy [Music] three wide behind them you got him mikey you got him man you got him come on mikey you got it man you got it you got it [Music] [Applause] oh man crossing the finish line to the checkered flag he finally did it in the biggest race of the year no less all the same it was joy's all around from the 15 team and michael waltrip however they were unaware of what unfolded in turn 4. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] michael waltrip 462 green flags finally a checkered does this feel as good as you had hoped just unconscious uh thank god thank my dad i love him so much and uh you know i just can't believe it it hasn't sunk in yet i know i would have never won without dell junior so he had to get half the credit and i know i never would have won without the belief and dale jr dale senior had for me and napa and all the people on my team i thought it was kind of boasterous for br bragging that we thought we could win this race i mean we haven't ever re-raced yet your brother wants to talk to you let's put the headset on you did we did you talked to dw what's up brother man i want to be i want to be down there with you i want to give you a big hug but uh man way to go i was in there riding with you praying for you pulling for you well i'm gonna as soon as i find dale jr i'm gonna give him a big kiss oh you should buddy he won me the race and you can't do this deal nowadays without friends and he was my friend his budweiser chevy run second he had a dream he won the daytona 500. and he did i'm just here celebrating man yeah well i know can i say one more thing [Applause] god can't believe it's over now let me ask you a question darrell how much better does one per 463 sound that ain't nothing it's something up on my record i don't care but i do know this me and my brother have both won the dates hold up five that's right brother that's right brothers wall chip was waiting for both senior and junior to come celebrate with him in victory circle but as we all know that just wasn't the case ken schrader showed up and told michael the news when he got the message michael's emotions went from happiness to sadness junior ran to check on the condition of his father unfortunately when they arrived at halifax medical center there was not much time left to save dale earnhardt's life by the time they reached the hospital it was already too late this is undoubtedly one of the toughest announcements that i've ever personally had to make but after the accident and turned four at the end of the daytona 500 uh we've lost dale earnhardt and uh to have with me dr steve bohannon who's a trauma doctor here in daytona that's worked several events here at the speedway and he can explain the medical practice that went on at the accident scene and over to the hospital in a timing issue we're here to tell you what we know we don't know a lot we don't know enough to answer all your questions our prayers and wishes and our effort right now this moment is with teresa and the earnhardt family richard childress and his family and dale earnhardt incorporated but i'll have dr bohannon take it from here for right now i was on one of the ambulances that responded to the accident i was about the third or fourth axe ambulance in when i arrived there were a number of paramedics already attending to him there was a paramedic in through the passenger window applying auction by a mask dr tim allison he was a trauma surgeon from flagler county was in through the driver's window and was delivering cpr and there was another paramedic in the window with them helping maintain the c-spine holding the head there were a number of firefighters that were on top of the car attempting to remove the roof which was subsequently done that took about five or ten minutes during which time we did cpr when the roof came off dr allison and i both identified this was a a very bad situation a load and go situation we immediately removed him and transported him to the area level two trauma center halifax hospital transport time was about a minute to a minute and a half during which time we continued cpr there was a full trauma team there to meet him a trauma neurosurgeon dr bill kuhn trauma surgeon dr demiuka there were several emergency room doctors there as well we all did everything we could for him additionally there was an anesthesiologist who helped us maintain the airway but he had what i feel were life-ending type injuries at the time of impact and really nothing could be done for him dale earnhardt would have been 50 in april the man who was nascar racing with 76 winston cup victories is survived by his wife four children carrie kelly king taylor nicole and dale earnhardt jr who finished second in sunday's daytona 500 behind michael waltrip both cars owned by dale earnhardt while michael waltrip was winning the pinnacle race of his career the daytona 500 his car owner dale earnhardt was sliding into the wall where he died at the age of 49. joining me now is former daytona 500 champion and veteran winston cup driver derek cope uh derek your your thoughts on this thing when you saw it you saw it unfold like the rest of us today well you know the 43rd running the daytona 500 it's certainly the best of times and the worst of times for nascar winston cup racing to lose you know our most prolific race car driver of nascar it's certainly difficult for all of us to comprehend and fathom at this point in time but it was a vicious crash and certainly um you know a difficult difficult one for everyone all right derek we're going to take another look at this as it unfolded in the final laps of this race certainly to the fan it may not have looked as if it was that bad of a situation well obviously right here you know coming into turn three and four uh dale earnhardt was flanked by ken schroeder on the outside of him and uh you know sterling martin on the inside and had rusty wallace right up the right up his his rear and uh basically 190 mile an hour impact at that point uh the car got loose you come down on the apron and shot immediately back up you see he's on the apron boom the cars back up and this type of a crash is so serious from the standpoint that uh that basically it uh right here you see how the impact is so hard so vicious 100 miles an hour he had no time to react at all had no time to react whatsoever because it's difficult to watch difficult to watch there's nothing a driver derek can really do at that point with that amount of speed it doesn't matter how much skill you have or how much control you have over a car that type of accident uh when it happens like that and unfolds like that there's nothing you can really do as a driver not really you know um you're at the mercy of whatever happened to that point in time you know certainly um certainly you you basically get into a situation there where you know you're on the last lap of the race all you're thinking about is trying to to keep somebody behind you protect the lead for your son and for michael and your teammates uh and then basically you get into a situation where somebody taps him the car goes down you instantly react basically it was instinctive for dale earnhardt he overcorrected the car shut up the racetrack that was the only way it was going to go there was no way that he or anyone else was going to stop that race car from doing exactly what it did and derek we spoke earlier today you said that you had had a similar accident to this certainly not of this magnitude but you would hit a wall at a racetrack at a similar amount of speed can you tell us a little bit about what it is like as a driver to feel that kind of impact well certainly the situation that i was in was was a bit different from the standpoint that i backed it then and dale hit it you know head on you go 190 miles an hour off into a corner and you're wide open and basically when something happens much like this or a tire blowing in my case the car gets turned around and you you have no way of stopping it and you're so long for the ride and certainly dale you know dale he was battling that thing to the end he certainly thought he was going to find a way out of it or he was going to be able to to spin around and keep digging i mean that's probably what he was that was in his mind right up to the end and ken squire you saw all of his daytona 500 performances this was his 23rd consecutive start and it's difficult to describe or put into words what dale earnhardt did for nascar racing well whatever stock car racing is dale earnhardt was he was the child in the back of the pickup truck at the charlotte motor speedway with his dad watching those cars in the 600 and dreaming someday of being in winston cup racing he was the teenager whose equipment was a t-shirt and a crash helmet bombing rides building cars trying to prove that he could handle those short tracks in the carolinas just as well as his father ralph hornhardt did who was a national champion he was the guy that came along in 1979 and became rookie of the year in winston cup racing and one year later was the winston cup national champion and through it all he seemed quiet he became the intimidator one who didn't have much to say but he did it with his deeds on the racetrack his wife teresa changed a lot of that he became much easier with the media until 1994 on this very track just a few hundred feet from where he died today his best friend in this world neil bonnett lost his life in a very similar type of crash it seemed as if he went into a dark period for a bit and then he's come out of it 1997 nearly won the 500 it was right there then was upside down in the back stretch refused to go to the medical center got back in and drove the car around and finished the race and then one year later we saw him in victory lane 20 years of effort in winning the race that meant the most to him and there he was up on top of the world he told me in victory lane that day yes yes 20 years can you believe it i remember turning off the tv i didn't think anything of it because i figured i would just catch these the next day or you know like find out who won the next day and i happened to be working air force base and i remember leaving out for work early because i had to be there by eight in the morning and on my way to work as i'm driving i had the radio on they were talking about the race dale earnhardt um got into the accident really bad and then they had said that he had passed away and i just remember that got like i i just felt like somebody reached in and just pulled like my insides out and i had to pull over because i was just so like i was so upset and i i was kind of thankful that i didn't see that happen you know and i remember getting to work and a couple of my my co-workers who were also big nascar fans um we were all just talking about it and we were just really upset like you know it just felt like a family member believe it or not you know and i just i remember going home and when i got home i was actually able to see bits and pieces of what had happened now if we talk about this uh last lap here uh i actually have it i have it up as i'm talking about it so i can see now michael waltrip comes to the line leading dale jr and then dale senior then sterling marlin so obviously any any time on the last step lap at daytona it's go time and um you know it was pretty much every man for himself at that point uh as i'm watching now they were still rather single file into turn number one um and no moves were starting to really be made until uh that last back stretch area but dale jr actually did get the run on the back straightaway but still couldn't get anything but dale senior was actually three wide going into turn number turn number three which he already put him into a hairy situation and um you know three wide at daytona even nowadays is hard but it's a lot more doable nowadays you'll see three wide three by three at daytona and they can run for laps on end back then if you're three wide any longer than the hat like a few hundred feet you're you're you're gonna be smelling trouble rather soon and um uh yeah and then it calls you know he was on top of sterling marlin and then you know he turned up into kenny and then that was it now um let me just mention real quick and know what instantly killed him um because what instantly killed him obviously you know was not having hans device you know whatever but that it's weird because back then even in that same race there were crashes that looked uglier there were crashes that had flips or crashes where the cars like were just bouncing off of each other but what made that crash so brutal is that because he didn't have his uh any stable protection in his driver area like you know how inertia works like you know when something's moving not it's not going to stop moving unless stopped by a force and um and i think that's that's newton's law or something um but it what really ensued this was as dale goes into that wall he's probably i mean this inch before it hit the wall i bet uh dale senior was probably going about 145 150 miles an hour you know maybe a little less than that but you know no less than 120 miles an hour and when that and that was before safer barriers too so that is basically his head is just moving through space and it just you know his car completely stops and because he didn't have that hans device or anything in that in that area to keep his head from you know moving moving back and forth is pretty much his part of his head kept moving and this is kind of going to be a little uh disgusting for uh some of the younger ones but you know his eyes did were apparently weren't really in it like fully in his head after the crash which is i know rather gruesome but you know when i first found out about that it was just you know it's just mind-boggling and that's you know that's where you can't then even to this day in 2021 20 years later you can't deny um how fast these guys are moving and if if their body isn't stabilized while the car is moving then you're gonna have problems that's the whole idea as there's all this inertia going on the whole idea in safety is to stabilize the entire body so that even as the car is moving your body is in this bubble right and you know and as we know uh dale seniors crash caused so many safety uh upgrades to these cars and not just nascar but in the whole entire world and uh you know it's crazy to think that i can go off for 10 minutes just about something that happened like that you know because that one moment in racing history defined where we're at now um like i can definitely even say especially even with f1 but not even just f1 even like open wheel racing as a whole has really come a far a long way too especially because if you look at the difference between open wheel racing and then stock car racing they are two drastically different thing types of racing and at the same time too it took a lot longer for open wheel racing for f1 and indy car to really put safety measures down just because of how fast those cars go those cars go up to speeds of way over 210 miles an hour going into the corners and a lot of tracks are not suitable for open wheel racing at all tracks like vegas pocono stuff like that they are just not at all suitable for open racing at all but they retort a little more especially because especially for f1 i mean we all saw about it this was it this was public for a while on social media with roman with um roman grosjon's um near fatal crash at bahrain a couple weeks ago back in december i woke i remember um where i was too i was just in here in this very room i actually had just woken up and had just hopped on instagram i wasn't watching the race at the time but hopped on insta it was one of the first things i did and once i did there were people going crazy saying that roman grosjon had been involved in a crazy steer had been involved in a serious crash or whatever and then i looked at the crash myself and was stunned i was shocked at my mind it that scared me watching that crash because if you go and look at that freaking wreck if you look and watch that crash the whole car was completely just it was just it was cut in half the whole car was cut in half the whole thing it's amazing that roman walked out of there with a couple burns that's it he got out of that car so freaking fast hopped over that guard rail and was just treated at the hospital for a couple things like first degree burn or something like that it was like first or second degree i don't know what it was but just a few burns and that was really it other than that he walked out of that crash with just unscathed but had that been back in the 90s he wouldn't have survived that crash the fact that he literally went through that guardrail i can't even emphasize this enough he went directly through that guardrail and that car to make even more of a comparison that car looked exactly like paul walker's car that he and um roger rhodes were driving in 2013 that killed the two of them the car that that porsche carrera was just like roman grosjean's was it was cut in half it's like if you went and you cut a sandwich in half it looked exactly like that this if for any of the formula one fans that are watching uh seeing grosjean literally go through the barrier after going so quick and being on fire and the car being completely dismantled but he walked out with only a few burns that's mind-boggling and you know for anybody that uh is familiar with how brutal racing is you know and how easily it is to die the fact that a crash like that can happen now and you can still survive it is mind-boggling and i think every racing driver in the world should really thank dale and hart senior for basically giving his life for what he loved because that that moment it really probably saved thousands of lives like let's let's be real because it weren't for that moment would han's devices have been incorporated as much in the 2000s would people take you know take it as seriously would somebody else have lost their life that year you know because there are other crashes in 2001 that were really bad and you know after that i'm not sure when they required everybody to wear the hans devices but um you know i'm after that it was pretty much no question you know but um but yeah i mean that's that's my perspective of of uh of that moment and as you can tell that moment uh ripples through my head throughout my life because i mean it's funny because i wasn't really aware i was a baby i was two years old i i noticed for a fact my father always put me in front of the tv for the daytona 500 when i was growing up i was born in 99 so i wasn't even two yet um but you know maybe when i was a kid i was like oh crash or whatever you know you can't conceive that something just happened but as i got older and you know as my race love for racing kind of starting you know you you know by the time i was six or seven youtube was around and i was able to actually see what happened and the craziest thing was if you were to insert yourself into the racing community any time since then even if you didn't know anything about it you would hear about dalenhar seniors impact on the sport and that very crash because that crash basically is like i said the moment that defines the history of nascar obviously i didn't get a chance to see it live because i mean i was just barely born at the time and i wasn't a nascar fan yet but i can definitely vouch and say especially if i was able to see it live that time it easily would have been one of the greatest day 2500s i've ever seen live without a doubt but unfortunately though it's just it doesn't it's not that way unfortunately all that good stuff that happened that day none of it matters unfortunately none of it matters at all it's the ironic thing just because of the fact that we lost easily in my opinion one of the sport's greatest if not the greatest driver ever and dale earnhardt like just the fact that it almost played like it almost played like just a bad dream if you want to think of it too the fact that it was so good to start out but everything just went downhill everything just completely um just went down the drain so fast after the race was over um it was so similar to um last year's daytona 402. the only difference was that newman survived but for a while nobody knew anything and we all were just speculating on what was going on if um everything dale was okay we didn't know no one really knew anything at the time like that's the thing too it was an action-packed day of thrilling racing but um at the end of it all just none of it really mattered unfortunately and even to elaborate on even kenny schroeder too you can ask kenny more than once but he will never tell you what it is he saw in that car when he went to take dale seniors on window net down he just took that window net down and he frantically just went and just um just wanted the crew guys to get over there really freaking quickly and luckily they were there right away but unfortunately he was already just too far gone dale was already gone um but no one knew it at the time that's the sad part unfortunately but yeah kenny he'll never tell you what it is he saw in there at all all he can tell you that he just knew that something was up he just knew that dale was in trouble that's that's all that he'll tell you he'll never tell you what it is he fully saw in my car uh ironic for sure and sad all at the same time for somebody who's so legendary in nascar yeah i thought it was pretty crazy for someone to get their first win out of all those starts and then have such a tragic event happened on the last lap and that's the part to your point uh dj that it's the last lap yeah it's the whole stretch and the lead isn't even in contention and he loses uh control the car into the wall and then to think that there was the safety device that hans device that could have made a difference potentially and i just think what would racing be like today had he not uh been killed in that crash and i have i've heard uh many um casual people and say this too that they say that it that it didn't look as fatal i i'm saying the same thing it doesn't the way he hits that wall because his momentum is still going down the direction of the track as well and it's like that was the hardest thing to comprehend it's just so hard because you would think that the other car is taking that momentum away from him slamming into the wall because he's kind of pushing him in the other direction not where he's running directly into the wall it's so hard to comprehend that and it wasn't like he slept he slid up the track into the wall which you would have thought would have taken some of his momentum away that wouldn't have caused that uh neck injury if i'm not mistaken his neck he broke his neck on that correct yes yes and um i think it was almost again if i'm not mistaken like a hangman injury what happened was as he went as he slid into the wall the vertebrae slipped on onto actually the top vertebrae slipped uh forward on the bottom vertebrae underneath of there which is a similar to a hangman injury and severed the uh brain spinal cord from that mistake yes and that was what the hans device was supposed to stop so it was just that controlling of that head and neck sliding on itself like that so the irony is all this other if you will carnage just from cars but not from people in that other accident no problem and here's something that seems relatively innocent of a car just hitting the wall and unfortunately it was fatal tragically it was fatal earnhardt's fatal accident was the final straw nascar really put the hammer down on safety measures and have come a long way since that very day since the implementation of safer barriers stronger head and neck support or hans device for short and other safety features down the line we haven't had a single fatality in either one of the top three top nascar divisions but still becoming a nascar driver means that your life can come close to death just ask ryan newman regarding his near-fatal accident in last year's 500. crash into the wall into the air goes newman upside down in a shower of sparks on his roof ryan newman comes across the line fourth well first and foremost kelvin you might might not know i was at this past daytona 500 this year in february um ryan newman was coming right to the finish line to win his second daytona 500 till push went wrong from ryan and he sent him into the wall flipping at 200 miles per hour before being collected by corey majority me and my friend we were almost certain we were 120 sure that was a career ending crash and newman would be dead if not paralyzed i was for sure he was gonna have a spinal injury possibly never be able to walk again and you know get inside a race car we thought that was the end for newton we thought when steve o'donnell was in the media center after the race that was the announcement that newman had passed away but when they said he was in pretty good critical condition and his injuries were non-life-threatening that's when i knew nascar had done everything right since dale senior's death because dale senior's death i firmly believe saved ryan newman's life as long as as well as the safety measures ryan knew been pushed for all these years the newman block for example which might have stages all night oh yeah without a doubt totally agree on that 100 i mean tell you the truth i think all of us nascar fans i mean not even just nascar fans i think motorsports fans as a whole can really agree that motor sports has come a very very long way in terms of safety over the years um and even for us nascar fans we all know this especially that it's just the fact that ryan newman was able to survive that crash because if you go back and you watch that wreck he gets just thrown straight into the air like the fact that he gets just he's tumbling all across the freaking racetrack um he just gets turned head on into the freaking wall and cory lejoy obviously because he can't slow down he just literally runs straight into the door of his car and it knocked him out completely but it's a miracle that he even with all of that all that stuff protected him that roll cage the hans device everything all of that protected him um through that wreck and everything but yeah it was just so similar to oh one like we all of us we were scared we didn't know what to think or what to say and then because we really didn't know anything at that time too we all were just sitting there just twitter just tootling our thumbs just hoping just praying that we would get at least something some form of an update um after the race because if you watch the broadcast it felt so similar to just a 2001. anyone who any long time nascar fan that watched the 01 500 and then watch the 500 last year um i definitely can imagine probably felt similar vibes to the o1500 if there are fans that are still watching to this day from that race though that is but i can only imagine they if they were they felt similar vibes to that race because the same thing in the 01 500 happened in last year's 502. um no one really knew anything like i said so um and then they were kind of pressed for time so fox had to go off the air with the race but the only difference was between um the o1500 and this one is that um fox did come back on the air to analyze the rest of the race like mike was just like even mike said it in um um for the documentary um for the o 1 500 that he pretty much was trying to get larry and daryl to focus on analyzing the race and everything else that had happened during the day but they didn't want to overstate anything and they didn't want to just leave everyone just you know thinking that everything was a-okay but for jeff and mike last year they went off the air completely and we were just sitting there just stunned we were sitting here just like i said just tootling our thumbs the whole time not knowing anything we didn't even get an update until i think it was about um excuse me at least like i think excuse me sorry at least 24 hours later i believe was when we got the official update that newman was somewhat okay but he was just in critical condition at that point but yeah we all were scared we didn't know what to think i know i especially was after watching that wreck i've seen it a thousand times and it still is just scary and it still is a miracle to me that he even survived that crash given everything that happened that day um but it's just it's crazy to me the fact that we all know this motorsports are dangerous every motorsports fan knows this and i think it's always crazy to think that it takes a wreck like that one to bring motorsports fans back down to reality again that even though the sport is as safe as it can be right now that doesn't mean that there won't be times where we're gonna get wrecks like that there are gonna be times where we're gonna get wrecks just like that one just like ryan priest's kansas crash and stuff like that that really just take your breath out of the way and they just instantly um to put it in just put it into words it really just it scares you it just it makes you even jump out of your skin i feel like sometimes too because you don't know what can happen sometimes like every single person that watches motorsports and especially the drivers themselves i i retort this a lot as a motorsports fan that every single driver that has gone into any form of motorsport they are all well aware of the risks that they're taking every last one of them every single last one of them know what they're getting into when they're doing this when they're driving they know what they're getting themselves into every single person that has gone into any motor doesn't matter what it is nascar indycar f1 it doesn't matter they all know what the risks are every last one of them they all know what risks they're taking but yet they have chosen to live this life this is the life that they've always wanted to live it's been their passion it's been their drive it's what they love and unfortunately the sad part about it is so many drivers in any form of motorsport it doesn't matter what it is have lost their lives doing what it is they love most and it's literally because of one thing safety because the safety wasn't as good as it is right now if you go back and look at the races in the 90s every couple of years or so a driver would lose their life in a practice crash a race it didn't matter um and this also is going to tie into even a warranty dale senior here especially with us nascar fans um back then you kind of like accepted it a little bit you kind of accepted it as that reality at that time and kind of moved on just a little bit but dale's death was so much different so many fans i would even say today still haven't been able to move on just because of how painful it was because it was just so freaking painful like the biggest icon you could say the ambassador for nascar at that time got killed in the greatest event in nascar history even you could even make it even a case this way imagine back then if michael jordan died in the nba finals or tom brady died during the super bowl or something like that or you could even say maybe even babe ruth had died in the world series that's the same impact that it had watching dale senior pass away in the daytona 500 that year it was an as an absolute blow to sport it was the biggest shock that anyone could have ever imagined at that time just one of the sport's biggest drivers easily maybe even the greatest driver ever a seven-time champion one of the three that we currently have the only one that the only seven time champion to lose his life in a race is no longer here unfortunately but ever since that day though safety has come a long way and we haven't had an on track death since and as a nascar fan myself for all this time and i've seen i've seen it all i've i even made a post on my instagram page um a year ago um that i've seen it all i've seen a lot of wrecks over the years as a nascar fan catch fence crashes hard racks my favorite driver jimmy johnson had been in a crapload of wrecks i mean luckily he's never flipped one but he's been a lot of hard crashes over the years a lot of head-on collisions um a crash like back in 2012 he and um david reagan got into a wreck or whatever um and he got slammed into the door by that 34 car of david reagan after elliott sadler turned him into the wall but luckily he was just fine he was okay that last hit when he got hit the door was pretty hard he had said but he was fine he walked out and he was just fine he was a-okay nothing happened to him he was all right he was just fine for that wreck but i'll tell you the truth though i guarantee you though because of how hard that impact was if jimmy wasn't wearing that hans device that day though and if the safety measures were not taken like they were i think he would have died tell you the truth just because of how hard that collision was it was straight dead on to that door it was just a really hard collision recapping the 2001 edition of the daytona 500 outside from that infamous final lap the racing delivered all tons of excitement no need for cuts this time as mentioned earlier the lead changed tally marked 49 in total just like the 2000 edition of the winston 500 at talladega average speed in this race was 161.783 miles per hour the number of cautions were reduced from 6 in 2000 to only 3 in 2001 the other caution was for curd bush making a looking mistake and spinning out in the triangle grass as for how long the race went it was three hours and five minutes long looking at the list of black leaders ward burton led the most laps of 53 sterling marlin who finished in the top 10 in seventh led the second most laps with 39. michael walcher rounds out the podium in the list leading the third most of 27 others to lead laughs were mike skinner with 24 dale senior with 17 his son jr leading 13 jeff gordon with 11. schroeder with seven baba lebanon with three steve park with two and the drivers to lead one lone lap were bill elliott brepodon dale jarrett and mark martin likewise with my version of the 2000 daytona 500 documentary i'll be ranking certain drivers in the following categories driver of the race driver on the move and who was cold [Music] so my driver of the race was dale earnhardt and here's why when you look at earnhardt's stats and his incredible maneuvers from the budweiser's shootout and the 2125 qualifier that obviously happened prior to the 500 you realize how and why he was the heavy favorite out of the bunch to win after all he let the most laps in his qualifying race and finished on the podium in that race and also the shootout where he led the second most laps you also gotta give him credit for doing what he did protecting the lead from both his friend and son in the final laps even though it obviously cost him his life on the contrary he would go from the back to the front in just the course of a few laps one way or another here we go the earnhardt this is this is everybody else's worst nightmare these two guys get hooked up outside i'm telling you it's gonna be trouble in terms of i would a bit i would definitely i'll make a case here in terms of the way that the race played out and because of the way the race itself went i'm gonna say that my driver of the day i will say because t-bow through so much adversity and finally got his first win of his career michael waltrip is the driver of the day for me just because of the fact that he kind of started rearing the field a little bit and he was stuck in the back for a good little bit of the race and everything too um and his car wasn't the best throughout the day but then the crew made adjustments on it made the car right and everything and he could just drive the heck out of it and all that good stuff and then he got up there late in the race took the lead and just never looked back and ended up winning it and just held him off the rest of the way so i would definitely say michael waltrip is my driver of the day wasn't there all freaking day didn't leave the most laps but he was there when he counted most and took the for his first career win so i got to give it to michael because at least i can give him something besides the fact that he won the race it's still gonna be overshadowed because of dale senior's death so i can at least give him not just a race win but um at least give him my drive of the day because i really feel he rightfully deserves it because he went through so much in a span of less than 30 seconds the fact that he was already celebrating after he won the race and then was told at least 30 seconds later that the celebrating is pretty much over because now this day is literally turning into the worst day ever for all of us driver of the race i'll have to go with michael waltrip simply because it was his first win he did everything he was supposed to stayed up front ran his own race while having his teammate help him towards the finish he also stayed out of multiple big ones towards the end if you heard or if you've seen i like it or about her michael walter started in the back had some problems and then you know he was like he needed some adjustments and he fought his way back he had the speed he went back to there here he went from where he started had some adjustments worked up there and finally he fought up there he kept it going he had his teammate junior and senior until that last lap until we get there but i would say michael walter michael waltrip had that car no one expected it like no one expected michael waltrip to do it because he his car was crap i'm sorry his car was crap and here's the thing michael waltrip yeah he had the fastest car or not really the fastest but he sure as hell put him for he he showed everyone he was he was dominant he showed everyone he was like okay you know if you're gonna doubt me then doubt me i'll show you as i'm from that i'm i'll prove you wrong look at him now look at him now two times i'm going to say the driver of the day and that daytona 500 i'm gonna have to say dalenhart jr uh dalenhar jr was running so um was running so smart uh for his age um but also i definitely think he had help uh from his dad and he actually was able to even lead 13 laps that day so i mean you know dalenhar jr was one of the younger ones in that field and you know and he put pressure on michael waltrip that entire end of the race and he had you know guy like i said guys like bill elliot throwing marlin kenny schroeder and even his dad behind him and you know even though his dad helped him like his dad you know was made it very clear that um he wasn't going to be any uh any go go easy on his son at all um and you know dale dale jr was one of the younger ones then you know dale jr was one of the younger ones just like matt kentuc um tony stewart john andretti all them you know uh so you know definitely definitely he didn't have it easy uh and he still finished second and uh you know it was a lot harder to make passes on the final lap back then but um he could have gotten michael um but uh you know with the crash i haven't behind him and not having me having that help he couldn't get him but you know that's that's that's why i even think dale jr got the driver of the day over michael waltrip because michael waltrip is more or less trying to keep dale jr behind him i'm going to say d.i for well hear me out if it wasn't for dale jr gentlemen or helping michael waltrip michael walter probably would have won the race but i got to admit they were up there for a lot of portions of the race michael walsh was in first um some sometimes dale jr was in second and he'll switch out with dale earnhardt you know and before the race started they wanted to work together and help michael waltrip win a race and especially daytona because that imagine winning your first race in daytona like trevor bailey did in 2011. so i believe my i think the whole team of ddi which is really good in that race until the end obviously um because they were all together they were working together they were they were up front you know michael waltrip did go to the back in the early stages of the race but he did come back up front and they were all working together so i gotta say di as a whole were the main drivers that did well in that race but i don't know what you think but that's what i think the driver on the move in my opinion was ricky rudd and believe it or not rudd had to race his way in the big show in which he did following a 14th place finish in his 2125 qualifier to secure himself inside the transfer spots when it came crunch time in the 500 rudd delivered starting the race way back in 30th he stayed out of trouble and kept the car in one piece to claim fourth place consistent strategies making the right calls are key to getting in a good position having a good points day to benefit the outcome of finishing inside the top ten or top five and ricky rudd did just that making the right moves at the right time and getting a fourth place finish as a result he also did a sterling job managing his tires which is another reason why he finished where he finished i'd have to say the same i mean starting 30th and ending fourth is just spectacular driving and it reminds me i mean a little bit that has to do with your pit crew too and i don't know if you watch ford versus ferrari a great movie so and there was a lot of strategy built into that of course i know that they were back and forth chasing it because he was it was shelby that was designing uh the ford and he they kept changing the things and then it was you know whose engine could run faster you know trying to get the maximum out of and they were racing in the rain it was the tires it was the fuel and when they come in for the fuel versus not coming for the fuel um and then the engine on top of that and to your point switching up the tires based on the on the um road surface and when they come in for that pit stop and how much longer to stay out um you know what i kind of want to give it to mike wallace honestly because of his performance and just because of the fact that he was kind of like he kind of flirted around mid-pack you got to get a quiet day he had a really quiet day all day didn't really make much noise and no one really talked about him all day but the fact that he finished in the top ten looks like he finished the sixth here i gotta give him um driver on the move because of the fact that he was pretty quiet all day didn't really do too much to make a lot of noise but got a top ten out of him so i gotta give it to him gotta get to that seven yard really good finish for him i'm gonna say i'm gonna say michael because he was in the because he was up front they went all the way to the back then he came back up to the front and he won the race you know of course if there was help with dale jr and dale earnhardt but he did like he was just telling aj tardy to be in the bag at the front back of the front you could be all over the place in the race but i'm gonna say mikey because he was in the back and he came to the front and he won the race so i guess he was the biggest mover bobby i have to go with bobby i feel like that's the best one in my heart bobby hamilton then yes had a quiet day but uh managed to stay out of trouble and finish in the top ten despite starting in 35th so it's funny you say that calvin because i have to honestly go with jeremy mayfield because he finished ninth after starting 38. barry top ten made jeremy mayfield he i believe he started towards the back and actually got himself a top 10 vision i'm not mistaken that's i believe i'm not mistaken he came home somewhere seven or eight um but yeah jeremy mayfield wherever he started you know hey don't tell any of the penske guys because you know rusty wallace he was still the driver of the two at the time and jeremy mayfield drives 12 after somewhat not good times but hey getting a top 10 in the daytona 500 i mean hey that's that's the thing that's something to pat yourself on the back but you know that's that's something i would never see in my life a team jeremy may feel that good well as i look uh through uh racing reference um ron horned there's a several guys to uh could be considered with uh being some really big movers um now uh one to mention is fish who finished in uh p number because i was actually going to say uh robert presley was a very big mover because he started 39th in the uh race in the 77 he wanted a finishing 14th but jeremy mayfield jeremy mayfield started 38th and finished the ninth so that's that's a really powerful run i mean bobby hamilton started 35th and finished eighth so i mean that's the thing this race is full of big big movers that day but the big big mover of them all uh i would definitely have to uh go with a brett bodine brep bodine started dead dead last and 43rd and was actually able to come out with a top 15 finish um and uh that and that's for brett beaudine then that's a finish p15 so biggest movie for that day uh brett beaudine um but now if you look at some of the drivers that definitely expected uh to have a you know better race and you know didn't come up too well and now like as we said before casey atwood who finished 20th um racing in the dodge dealers dodge for referendum motorsports like he was anticipated to do very well he didn't do very well matt kent uh he had the rookie of the year scheme he was looking to you know get better through his career he didn't do very well um kenny wallace he finished 25th uh tony stewart was involved that big crash tony stewart was trying to find his way into daytona 500 back then um i mean if you go do some of the other drivers like uh um joe nemechek joe nemechek was really trying to uh joe nemechek uh was for seeing um having a very good uh daytona 500 that year because you know uh joe nemechek had been in it for a little bit and he actually started 32nd so um you know so and some of these guys like the uh pulsator of uh the race was bill elliot uh in that dodge uh so built i mean bill elliot definitely foresaw uh finishing very well in that race and finished fifth um you know so that's daytona you know like you can like especially going into speed weeks a lot of these guys like they have something you know they're like yeah like we we really got it this year and there were definitely cars that really came into daytona to play that year and um you know they just couldn't they couldn't get there be there at the end and they they just did it you know that's what daytona does to people dude it just you can come to daytona with the best car and just completely uh throw it in the throat in the garbage another mention in this particular category is rusty wallace now despite him being out of contention due to an unscheduled pit stop following a tire blowout with the right front and falling out the order being a lap down because of it he and the number two blue deuce team kept their heads up to make a comeback thanks to the final two caution flags to get back on the lead lap and finish inside the podium place of p3 it wasn't easy but in the final moments rusty got it done it's pretty impressive to overcome multiple setbacks and still finish third let's say dale senior dale junior michael washer one up front i'm really really really sure he would have won these race if they were not upfront but you know they'll see you as a beast so maybe he would have finished second in my opinion tony stewart no doubt was inconsistent in this race uh sure he won the bud shootout but regarding the 500 stuart just couldn't get it together as a result he struggled to find the pace he had from the shootout and just couldn't transfer it into the daytona 500 reading no lapse after starting in 24th and furthermore ranked 36th due to being involved in that big crash they were doing they were doing decent like they were doing in the mid pass you know but that crash happened you know the big one and it was over for them like they couldn't go back on the tree you know like they were they were done like i wish tony store and bobby lombardi were in the top defense when they finished that race but you know the big one happened and then they went all over the place so you know i'm going to say joe gibbs with bobby the bonnie and tony sword yeah i definitely agree with that especially especially for a driver like dale jarrett too because of the fact that he started in the rear in this race as well he started deep in the field and then never really truly made his way up to the front either and was in the back too when he got crashed so i definitely especially because of the fact that he was defending winners i think he definitely in my opinion is definitely the driver that takes the coldest seat here because of the fact that he started in the rear and because of the fact that he was the defending champion of the 500 that year he literally started in the rear never really made his way up to the front and was stuck back there for a majority of the day and just got caught up in that 18 car wreck and then just that was it he just never made it up to the front or never even had a chance to really show what it is he could have done that day unlike guys like gordon and bert and a few others that actually made the way up near the front and had a chance to lead some laps or at least get up there and be in the top five top ten but dale jarrett never even sniffed the top ten once in that race so unfortunately for jarrett um despite the fact that he won the previous state 2500 he really really had a bad day that day starting starting just deep in the field and never made his way up to the front either especially because he had just a car that really wasn't handling um up to the just up to the um up to par all race long so he definitely takes the biggest back seat out of any of the drivers that day unfortunately i think i think the uh big uh one that was bombing was the jeff gordon um i'm pretty sure jeff gordon what uh yeah jeff gordon was involved with the in a crash and i think he only completely completed 178 laps um so you know jeff gordon really needed a good start to the championship that year uh last year that i mean back then you know it's not like now where if you crash you know you can just win and make the playoffs again like back then if you crash out of daytona you were in some deep deep trouble because uh you know you could like you know like there's guys like that like mike wallace uh sterling morrow uh certainly morrowind stacy compton um ken you know even ken schrader still finished 13th even though he crashed like some of the more lower running cars were able to get some good points that day and that's what makes um not getting a good finish at the daytona 500 very detrimental and that's why i say jeff gordon was definitely the dad of that day and not having a good start to that season to conclude this video it was to commemorate the 20th anniversary of this infamous race that comes to the minds of us racing fans every single day and to those that are watching that have seen the 2001 daytona 500 live when it happened all those years ago i hope my work was worth the watch and thus bringing back memories of where you were or if you were actually at the track i look forward to making more of these types of video slash documentaries in future with more of these highlights from the absolute best and worst daytona 500 races in its history at the moment two are done so far with the 2000 version being the first one i've covered up all in all i hope you enjoyed it nonetheless if you are interested in seeing more of these racing related documentaries in future do yourself a favor and hit that subscribe button until next time peace out stay safe and have a good one just like a year ago he's gonna get him [Music] thought using score the victory blessings the pepsi 400. do do when i would watch some race it's like man this guy is just like he is out there all by himself he has nothing to prove to anybody he is enjoying what he's doing but like i thought it was like cool to see like how like we racer kept changing like it went from one person then it seemed like in like five seconds it went to another person so it was cool to see like the how how how fast like the racers change in a certain amount of time uh and then even for the viewership for the tv stations everybody's got to be happier because now there's more excitement and enthusiasm and now it's like all this new technology it also gives them more to talk about see i was thinking like if they're introducing new technology that was making the cars faster that maybe they would think to implement some kind of new safety feature for something but i guess if a race from earlier years they're going the exact same speed or faster i guess they wouldn't think to add a safer helmet or anything like that but one thing is a pretty good match he's a good man and a good father father of this century well the main race was like michael waltrip and dale jr and dalen hart dei want to work together and help michael waltrip win the daytona 500. and um what happened was um dale earnhardt got caught up in a crash on the turn four and unfortunately died if he didn't die that day i think that would be one of the greatest daytona 500s ever but you know there's it happened with a strategy the cup series the winston cup series at the time literally had some of the biggest competition you were ever gonna get names off the bat dale jr danielle jarrett dale senior jeff gordon bill elliot sterling marlin ken schrader um terry lavonny bobby labonte the defending champion at that time the reigning champion going into 2001 just to name a few right off of the back arguably mostly the greatest drivers of the time and of all time too they didn't want to change their ways and it was i get it you know and in some ways like for example i wouldn't like the like the halo perfect example it with indy car and f1 a lot of people even in the sim racing world like this halo is ridiculous like there's this thing now just like right in the middle of your eyes uh you know but there are so many crashes we can already say in the year and a half it's existed where people's lives were seen i feel like the overall race was great good combination of passing a lot of um i don't know a lot of side by side action i just feel like nascar really got that package right especially after dale's complained the year prior about how bad the 2008's on the 500 was they basically listened to earnhardt senior and they got it just right you got a quad trailer on this one you went over to her house i really do it's insane how all that jumbled up together and made such a historical event in nascar basing overall was pretty good because um you

Channel: Turn 4 Productions

Views: 5,108

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Id: maV8adB_E70

Length: 141min 36sec (8496 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 18 2021