Mike Wallace drove from fifth to first on the last lap of Friday night's NASCAR Busch series race, taking advantage of crashes by Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr. to earn one of the biggest victories of his career.
Waltrip was strong throughout the race, but fell behind when he had a tire deflate 26 laps from the end of the 100-lap Winn-Dixie 250 at Daytona International Speedway.
He was 25th on the restart with nine laps remaining, but with four fresh tires charged through traffic and moved all the way to the lead on lap 98 with Jason Leffler right on his rear bumper and Earnhardt close behind.
PHOTO: AFP
Going into the final lap on the 4km oval, it was that trio followed by Greg Biffle and Wallace.
As the leaders drove into turn two, Waltrip slid up the track in front of Leffler, who bumped Waltrip and sent him spinning off the track and into the wall. That slowed Leffler a bit and Earnhardt, with momentum, drove high on the banked track to pass Leffler, who slid up the track and pinned both himself and Earnhardt to the wall.
That opened the door for Wallace, who shot to the lead and beat Leffler to the finish line by 0.116-seconds -- about five car-lengths. After the race, NASCAR penalized Leffler one second for unnecessary roughness, dropping him to 13th and giving second place to Biffle.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"The last few laps were just intense," said Wallace, who had gone 137 races since his last Busch victory in 1994 at Indianapolis Raceway Park.
At 45, the second of the three racing Wallace brothers has been struggling this year without major sponsorship on his Ford and had not finished better than 10th.
"I got behind and I saw Leffler go up to block Junior," the winner said. "My car just turned good and I got out in front and stayed there. So many people doubted my ability. This is for all those doubters."
Leffler said he didn't try to wreck anybody and apologized to Waltrip. But he was less contrite about his run-in with Earnhardt.
"At Talladega, Junior knocked me out of the way with about two [laps] to go and I didn't care who it was, I wanted to hold him off," Leffler said. "It's kind of like short track racing at 180 miles per hour."
Earnhardt, the NASCAR Nextel Cup star who had won in five of his last six Busch appearances, wasn't very happy with Leffler.
"I went to the outside and he just run us in the wall," said Earnhardt, the Daytona 500 winner and the favorite going into Saturday night's Nextel Cup race. "Ain't no other way to put it. He took us out, crashed us.
"I had a run on him and he was going to race to the finish and neither one of us got to do that."
Biffle had a good view of the last lap action, but was hesitant to place blame.
"It's hard to point fingers," he said. "Everybody's jockeying for position out there at that point."
Martin Truex Jr., Earnhardt's teammate, finished fourth, followed by Robert Pressley, polesitter Mike Bliss, Kasey Kahne and Casey Mears.
Rookie Kyle Busch, who came into the race trailing Truex in the standings by 28 points, finished 11th and slipped to 68 behind.
There were five caution periods in the race, including one brought out by a 10-car wreck. There were no injuries in the first Daytona race run with the energy absorbing SAFER barriers in place.
NO HARD FEELINGS: Taiwan’s Lin Hsiang-ti and Indonesia’s Dhinda Amartya Pratiwi embraced after fighting to a tense and rare 30-29 final game in their Uber Cup match The Taiwanese men’s team on Wednesday fought back from the brink of elimination to defeat Denmark in Group C and advance to the quarter-finals of the Thomas Cup, while the women’s team were to face South Korea after press time last night in the Uber Cup quarter-finals in Horsens, Denmark. In the first match, Taiwan’s top shuttler Chou Tien-chen faced a familiar opponent in world No. 3 Anders Antonsen. It was their 16th head-to-head matchup, with the Dane taking his fourth victory in a row against former world No. 2 Chou, winning 21-14, 13-21, 21-15 in 1 hour, 22 minutes. The
Jannik Sinner continued his quest to become the first man in history to win five Masters 1000 tournaments in a row with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Danish qualifier Elmer Moller at the Madrid Open on Sunday. The world leader extended his winning streak to 19 matches, a run that began early March in Indian Wells, and he has captured 24 consecutive victories at the Masters 1000 level, dating back to the Paris Masters last October. Searching for a maiden title at this level on clay, Sinner advanced to the round of 16 at the Caja Magica with a 77-minute performance against
When Paddy Dwyer arrived in China in 1976, crowds jostled to catch a glimpse of him and his companions — the first Western soccer team to play in the country. China was emerging from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, and on the brink of market reforms that would take the country from economic stagnation to explosive growth. “All we could see was lines of people running beside our bus, trying to look in the windows, to see their first visual of a white person,” he said. “It was all bicycles,” he said. “There were very few cars to be seen.” Dwyer,
Tennis players are facing an unexpected opponent at the Madrid Open. A stomach virus or food poisoning has affected Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, Marin Cilic and others, raising concerns. World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka avoided an upset by Naomi Osaka on the court on Monday and said she is trying to avoid illness by sticking to a diet of chicken breasts, rice and salad. The rumor among the players was bad shrimp tacos were to blame. Sabalenka knocked on wood for luck and said, “So far, so good. I heard that I have to avoid those tacos,” she laughed, adding “I stick to the
RSS