The 2012 Daytona 500 is going to go down in history as a bizarre race!
After a very fast start to the race, which was postponed due to rain on Sunday, on just the second lap Elliot Sadler tapped the rear bumper of Jimmie Johnson, sending him spinning through the tri-oval like a pinball. This massive wreck, which involved six cars, saw David Regan plow savagely into Jimmie Johnson's driver's side door. But what caught my attention is how Danica Patrick luckily passed through (some have referred to this as "threading the needle between two cars") two others cars after being involved in the initial pile up. Click here to watch the video of this wreck and Danica's lucky slide.
As the race seemed to go on forever (have to work in the morning) some forty laps before the finish and under caution, Juan Pablo Montoya abruptly spun out (due to mechanical faillure) on the backstretch and slid up into jet drier located in the upper grove of turn 3. The contact resulted in an explosion with flames shooting high up in the air and some 200 gallons of jet fuel spilling down the embankment. Never seen anything like this!
Luckily, both Montoya and the truck's driver escaped without injuries.
"I told them when I left the pits something wasn't right and I felt a weird vibration when we were with the pack," Montoya said after his medical evaluation. "Every time I got on the gas, it vibrated. So I came back in and they checked the rear-end and they said it was OK... I was on the back straightaway...I got on the brakes to travel up and while I was telling the spotter to have a look on how the rear was moving, the car just turned right."
Usually the word "circus" is mentioned when referring to the Formula One. This implies that a large group of people and artifacts decent on a locations and after the weekend they are gone. From now on, when I say the word "circus" I will be referring to the 2012 Daytona race!
Source: Jalopnic, sbnation.com
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