2004 Aarons 499
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Channel: KingCuervo88
Views: 96,506
Rating: 4.7656903 out of 5
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Id: 1GmJ7TLxMbI
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Length: 209min 50sec (12590 seconds)
Published: Wed Sep 17 2014
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I miss the Hendrick vs DEI battle at restrictor plate races in the early 2000s
This was also in a time, mind you, where Tony Stewart was at the worst of his "bad guy" phase because of all the trouble he caused at the beginning of 2004.
That crowd :'(
The reason I consider this underrated is because people only remember the controversial finish and Tony Stewart causing a big wreck. But at that time, this race had the most lead changes at Dega since 1984. The racing was insane throughout the event. There was even a brief 2 car tandem. Notice all the contact that was made during the race too. This race was wild.
Ahh yes, the infamous beer bombing Gordon race.
Definitely not underrated......I instantly knew which race this was but, nonetheless, fun to revisit it.
People have to understand just how dominant DEI was at plate races from 2001 through 2004. Between Mikey and Jr., DEI had 10 plate wins from Daytona 2001 through Daytona 2004 (the restrictor plate before this race). I believe that's 10 plate wins in 13 races......that's fucking ridiculous. Only the 2001 Talladega 500 in April (Bobby Hamilton), 2002 Daytona 500 (Ward Burton), and 2003 Pepsi 400 (Greg Biffle) were won by non-DEI cars during this time. That's a level of domination we've never seen at plate tracks (and it's hard to believe DEI didn't have SOME sort of advantage).
So the fact that Jeff Gordon was mixing it up with Earnhardt Jr. straight-up was pretty shocking. It also started the best run of Gordon's career on plate tracks - he won the next plate race at Daytona in July then won the Daytona 500 in Feb. 2005, backed-up his Aarron's 499 win by winning it again the next year in April 2005 (Yoda car), and then he swept Talladega in 2007. Don't think Gordon ever won again on a plate track after that. In any event, Hendrick really did put an end to DEI's plate dominance.
Very underrated, so was 05, and 07, and so was 06 until the last lap.
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