Daytona 500: Gordon Crashes, Earnhardt Chalks Another Second, and Jarrett Wins Again

02/20/96

The Associated Press reported the results of last Sunday's 38th annual Daytona 500, NASCAR's premiere event of the Winston Cup Series championship. The event ended rather badly and almost as soon as it had begun for Jeff Gordon, who was involved in a six car accident on lap 10 of the 200 lap event.

Gordon moved to the high side of turn four, breaking the stability of the field, which had been running two wide since the start of the race. Gordon's move put him in a three-wide pack in the curve; as the cars were straightening out for the shoot into the dogleg Gordon attempted to move back into line, but was clipped in the left rear by Jeremy Mayfield. A six car accident ensued. Joe Nemechek and Steve Grissom were also involved in the wreck, as Grissom spun and Nemecheck hit him damaging his own front end. Gordon was the only driver involved in the wreck who was forced to drop out at that point. Gordon finished in 42nd place, 143 points behind Dale Jarrett the winner.

Jarrett might have beat Earnhardt again, replaying the pair's race to the finish of 1993, but Earnhardt's second place finish nicely rounded out the records for his last 10 years of racing in the Daytona 500. Of 5,000 total Daytona 500 miles raced during the last decade, Earnhardt has completed just over 4,9997 of them, more than any other driver. Earnhardt had started the unfinished lap in 1991 when he blew a tire and his chance of winning that year's race. Earnhardt took home $215,065 for second place over the weekend bringing his career Winston Cup Series winnings to a whopping total of $26,163,610--again, more than any other driver.

For his part, Jarrett didn't pass Earnhardt until lap 177 of the 200 lap event; after that he led for the remaining 23 laps. Jarrett beat Earnhardt by 0.12 seconds, which translates to 2 and a half car lengths. Jarrett ascribed his victory to the Robert and Doug Yates engine in his Chevy. Jarrett averaged 154.308 mph and bagged $362,775 of the race's $3.6 million purse.

Sterling Marlin, the third driver in Daytona 500 history to attempt to win the event for 3 consecutive years, had to toss in the towel on lap 80, 4 laps after taking the lead for the first time. Marlin suffered engine problems.

Jarrett's racing partner Ernie Irvan also had some bad luck. Earnhardt suffered an ignition problem, Irvan bumped him from behind and then got hit by Wally Dallenbach. Irvan hit the wall hard enough to sustain serious damage at the left front of his car. Earnhardt took advantage of the yellow flag flown for Irvan to pull into the pits and get his crew to switch his car over to a secondary ignition box without losing a lap.

Paul Dever -- The Auto Channel