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In a very exciting Goody's Headache Powders 300, Steve Grissom in the World Championship Wrestling Monte Carlo has emerged the vistor. Taking the lead with 4 laps to go, Grissom used the drafting assistance of Jimmy Spencer to overtake Dale Jarrett to win his first Daytona event.
Today's win is Grissom's 11th in 209 career Busch starts. Grissom won two events on the Busch Series last year, winning both events at Bristol International Raceway.
Billy Ingle also recorded his first win with the Diamond Ridge team. Ingle moved over to the Grissom team last winter after working with Ricky Rudd's Winston Cup team. Ingle is also thew crew chief on Grissom's Cartton Network Wacky Racing team that is starting the Daytona 500 in the 26th position.
The late race leaders all had to pit for a gas-and-go under green flag conditions. Grissom, Jarrett and Mark Martin were all poised for a late race charge. Martin's attempts to pit first were thwarted when he was blocked by a lapped car -- and he attempted to speed ahead rather than slow down -- ultimately costing him the chance to pit. His Winn Dixie Thunderbird spurtted on the backstretch slowing him considerable -- an taking him out of the hunt for the win.
Grissom, the leader at the time, pitted first, followed by Jarrett, but both went back on the track alone, without any assistance of the draft. Jarrett emerged with a 3.3 second lead with 10 laps to go.
Grissom's Monte Carlo was stout and slowly cut into Jarrett's cushion Grissom's big break cam when he caught up to the lapped car of Jimmy Spencer. They began drafting together and easily pulled Jarrett in on the backstretch on lap 116. With four to go Grissom was in control.
In a very gentlemanly move, Spencer feel out of the draft and left Grissom and Jarrtt to fend for themselves and battle for the win.
Jarrett took a couple of looks but was unable to mount enough momentum to make the pass. Spencer appeared on the scene exiting turn four and appeared to be giving Jarrett some assistance but Grissom held on for the win.
Grissom's winning share of the record $772,975 was $54,697.
Grissom was joined in victory lane by a number of WCW's best. "Sting", "Lex Luger", "Booker T" and "Stevie Ray" made their first appearance of many trackside appearances this year.
The race was slowed by 5 cautions for 23 laps. 10 drivers (far less than the record 35) shared the lead that changed hands 14 times. Grissom's margin of victory was .19 second and the race took 2 hours, 7 minutes and 52 seconds.
Pole sitter Jeff Purvis was running well until he caused a caution early when he clipped Mike McLaughlin on the backstretch. McLaughlin emerged relatively unscathed, but Purvis sustained significant damage eliminating any chance of another win this week. He won the ARCA 200 last weekend.
Rounding out the top-5 were Dale Jarrett, Mark Martin, Larry Pearson and Curtis Markham.
