Daytona 500 Was Going As Planned...Until It Wasn’t

As the end of Sunday’s race was getting closer, I wasn’t thinking about the fact it was the Daytona 500.

I was thinking, “OK, when it gets down to it, what do we have to do to make sure we’re up toward the front, and what do we have to do make sure we get the right push and the right draft at the end of the race to break out in front of these guys?”

Kurt Busch and I had both agreed we wanted to be on the bottom – through communication with our spotters – and it was just a matter of making sure we got the big push at the end.

Honestly, the racing was turning out exactly how I thought it would be. The racing was like an accordion - four two-car packs would be able to break away from the main pack, then fall back, then come back to the front.

That was all how I had it pictured. It all played out how I thought it would.

And strategy-wise, we ended up right where we wanted to be with 25 to go. We had a good situation on fuel, we were hooked back up with Kurt. I knew our two cars were good together. I was committed to sticking with him at that point. I felt like staying with Kurt was our best shot to win.

Then the wreck happened.

The whole backstraightaway deal really wasn’t anybody’s fault. At that point in the race, nobody lifts. You just keep pushing. The problem is, I didn’t know they were pushing Kurt. So I went to slow down...and he hooked me sideways.

When I started to wreck, my first thought was, “Oh, shoot – there’s a lot of cars coming straight at my door. This could be big in a second!”

The other thing was I’ve seen a lot of cars get turned that way on the backstretch at Daytona and get airborne, so I was hoping all four tires would stay on the ground. I thought, “I really don’t want to flip today.”

And then we got hit, and I thought, “Man, none of these hits felt like they were really bad.” I felt like I got hit a bunch, but I didn’t feel like any of them were hard, devastating blows. When I got turned back around, I thought, “You know, other than having four flat tires, everything still seems to be tracking straight.”

As soon as I got the car straightened up on the back straightaway and was driving to the pits, I had already switched over to a different mindset. I switched my brain off and went into points mode. Quite honestly, after what happened to me at Talladega in 2008, it’s a lot easier for me to say, “Alright. Let’s just focus on getting a good run now.”

I figured after the race, I’d have my chance to go, “Damn, we were so close. Woe is me.” But it was pretty easy to switch over to looking at the big picture.

A year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to do that. I had learned a lot last year about managing emotions – the guys have had to work hard with me about that. And two years ago, I would have totally self-imploded inside the race car.

So by the time I hit pit road to have my team look at the damage, I was already fine. I was over it. It’s funny, I was going down the back straightaway and my crew chief, Pete Rondeau, came on the radio to give me the usual pep talk: “Hey, get your head in the game. We need to get points here.”

And I came back on the radio and said, “Pete, I’m fine. I’m already focused on what we have to do here.”

When it was all over, we finished seventh. Never once did I think we were going to salvage a top-10 finish out of it after the wreck. That was just an added bonus. I had figured if we got out of there with a top-15 after the wreck, I’d be happy.

After the race, I got out of the car and then I was able to think, “Son of a gun! Look how close we were here.” I let a little of the disappointment sink in at that point. But Monday morning was a whole new day, and I was watching Phoenix tapes and looking at notes for Phoenix already.

Daytona was my first career top-10, and that was cool. But I got zero enjoyment out of that stat, to be honest with you. I’ve been in positions to get top-10s before and they just didn’t happen because of circumstances. Getting a top-10 wasn’t that big of a deal in comparison to having a chance to win the Daytona 500.

You might go your whole career and never be in that good of a position to win that race again. More than anything, that’s what you think about some of these guys who have been trying for 20 or 30 years.

Trevor Bayne’s team is a prime example. He won it in his first try, but his crew chief Donnie Wingo has been trying for about 30 years. So it can go either way – you can go 30 years and not win it, or you can do it your first time and win it. It’s just one of those things where you don’t ever know if you’re going to have that shot again.

It was cool to see Trevor win. I felt like even back at tire testing, he had one of the best cars down here. As we progressed along, I told my guys: “Man, if he keeps his nose clean, that car could win this race. That thing is that strong.”

The main thing was going to be how fast he picked everything up – and he picked it up quickly. He got the respect of the veterans right away, with Jeff Gordon helping him in the 150s there.

Trevor was deserving. He had a fast car, and he put it in position all day where he needed to be. I was happy for him, but the coolest part for me about that was seeing the Wood Brothers win again.

First of all, they had the throwback David Pearson paint scheme, which was really cool. The neatest thing was how they reacted after winning.

Instead of thinking, “Alright, we just won all this money!” their first thought was, “We get to add races and go race more now!” To me, that’s really cool. That’s a true racer.

Overall, Daytona was great. We had a good week-and-a-half down there and showed what this Furniture Row Racing team is capable of. But now we go to Phoenix and start the other part of the season.

We’ve got a good start points-wise to the season – we’re sixth – so that’s good. Last year, we were in a big hole. Now I think we can go out there and race and see where we stack up in two or three weeks.