Crane Dominates In Route To Daytona Victory

DAYTONA BEACH, FL –He wouldn’t taste the lead until lap 72, but once he did Anthony Crane refused to let it go leading 83 of the final 170 laps in route to his first Daytona 500 victory. With two early wrecks taking out the majority of contenders, much of the race was a two car duel between Crane and Jason Meade’s #98 Pizza Hut Ford. A late race caution bunched the field up, but Crane held strong, retaking the lead and eventually pulling away for the win.

On a clear and perfect day in Daytona, MJ Lindamood brought the field down for the green flag of the 51st annual Daytona 500. For the first forty laps the field remained stacked up three deep as John Gamboa, MJ Lindamood and Julian Madore all taking turns with the lead. All forty-three cars remained in a tight pack until pit stops began on lap 40. After pit stops the lead would cycle around to the #94 of Jeremy Hevener as the lead group contained only seven cars. #09-Pat Fogel would see his day end early on Lap 39 due to a tire failure which destroyed his suspension. He would be the first, but not the last, casualty of the race.

Lap 45 saw the first caution of the day come out, for debris and the filed once again returned to pit road. During the pit stops Victor Quiles came out of his pit stall and was hit by Charlie Krill causing damage to Quiles. Two drivers would employe a gas only strategy, Nick Silver and Lance Bidwell, to come out of the pits one-two respectively. The first incident of the day occurred on Lap 53 when heading into turn one the third place car, #7-Keith Black, slowed suddenly as his ignition shorted out. Tyler Dalton, running fourth at the time, had nowhere to go and hit the #7 Circuit City Chevy. Black would continue on, but Dalton would spin in front of an oncoming group of cars. Several cars were involved including pole sitter Lindamood, Duel winner Michael Parker and front runners Tim Wildman, Jason Karlavige and Reese Usher. A handful of drivers would be forced to retire, but most involved were able to repair their cars and return to the race.

The race would get back under way several laps later with Julian Madore’s #18 Puma Camry leading the field down. Madore would lead unchallenged until Sebastian Scholl pushed his Citi Financial Fusion below Madore in turn four. Only a few laps later though the biggest incident of the race would occur and it completely changed the complexion of the race from then on.

As Scholl came up on the lap car of John Gamboa he decided to cut to the bottom rather than pass him on the high side moving down the backstretch. That move caused him to clip the front fender of AJ Young and Scholl then spun towards the inside of the track. He would recover the car only to drive it back up the banking in front of the leaders in turn three. The melee would take out many of the front runners including Madore, Robert Panko, Nick Silver and outside pole sitter Brad Fleischauer. Numerous other cars received damage, and these cars would often form their own slower drafting pack under green flag conditions.

Ironically enough Keith Black, ignition problems now fixed, would bring the field back to the green several laps later. A few laps later Bryan Kosh would draft past his teammate Crane to take the lead and would hold on to it for the next ten laps. On Lap 83 Crane would take the lead and for the next 110 laps, with the exception of pit stops, it would only be Crane and Jason Meade on top of the leader board. Those two cars broke away from the field and quickly began putting others laps down. This stretch went incident free with the exception of Keith Black finally retiring due to engine problems and Matt Peyton retiring due to damage from a previous wreck.

It appeared that the race would come down to Crane and Meade, each taking their part in the eighty lead changes we saw today. On lap 187 though, Tim Phillips lost an engine in turn one while running ninth. This would set up a ten lap shootout with the four remaining (Crane, Meade, Kosh and Bob Rowden) for the win. Crane would lead them down to take the green only to have Meade dive beneath him coming to the finish line to grab the lead the next lap. The very next lap Crane, using drafting help from his teammate Kosh, would draft past Meade and retake the lead. With six to go Kosh would draft past Crane to take the lead, the first different leader in well over one hundred laps. Kosh held the lead for the next three laps only to see his teammate’s #17 Charger pass him coming down the front stretch, taking the lead with three to go. Crane would then move in front of the Kosh, as Crane then cruised to his first Daytona victory.

The victory was the capstone of a Dodge podium sweep with Kosh coming in second, Rowden third, Meade fourth and Kevin Dirk fifth one lap behind. With only four cautions the race was a speedy one, and left Crane with a paycheck of just over 2.5 million dollars. The one-two finish of FU Motorsports also gave them a commanding lead in the Team Championship over second place Rowden Performance Motorsports.

All eyes are set to California Speedway, site of the series first change of venue in months. Will Anthony Crane be able to pick up two in a row? Will Dodge continue their strong performance from Speed Weeks? We’ll find out in just a few days time.

---- Russ Wheeler, AP