Let’s go racin’ boys….and there’s the rain.
The 2025 NASCAR Cup Sequence season is formally underway because the inexperienced flag dropped about an hour in the past on the season-opening Daytona 500.
However it didn’t lengthy.
The race began with loads of pageantry, as President Donald Trump attended the Nice American Race for the second time and led the sector across the monitor on the tempo laps in his presidential motorcade.
President @realDonaldTrump addresses the drivers earlier than the 2025 Daytona 500. pic.twitter.com/DP9hXWjDpm
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) February 16, 2025
Sadly, the racing didn’t final lengthy. Simply 11 laps into the race, the rain hit Daytona and NASCAR was pressured to throw the pink flag, bringing the vehicles down pit highway whereas the climate passes by.
It’s anticipated that NASCAR will be capable to get again to racing and get the whole race in in the present day after the storm passes by, nevertheless it appears to be like prefer it’s going to be no less than a couple of hours earlier than they’re in a position to get the monitor dry and return racing.
So whereas the race is in a pink flag, I figured it could be time to revisit one of many wildest pink flag moments in NASCAR historical past – which additionally occurred through the Daytona 500.
Again in 2012, the Daytona 500 was as soon as once more affected by climate, and the race was truly postponed from Sunday to Monday, February 26.
The race lastly went inexperienced at 7 PM on Monday evening. However the odd begin time for a Daytona 500 was simply foreshadowing of the weird occasions that might happen late within the race.
On lap 157, a automotive blew an engine and spun in entrance of visitors, bringing out the race’s seventh warning flag. Because the vehicles had been working across the monitor at warning velocity, Juan Pablo Montoya, who was piloting the #42 Goal Chevrolet for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, reported feeling a vibration in his automotive.
Montoya drove his automotive to pit highway and his group checked beneath the automotive for the supply of the issue. However they weren’t capable of finding something, so that they despatched him again out on the monitor.
There was clearly SOMETHING incorrect with the automotive by, as a result of as Montoya was getting into flip three at near-race velocity attempting to meet up with the remainder of the pack beneath the warning, no matter had been vibrating in Montoya’s automotive lastly broke and he misplaced management of his experience.
The automotive whipped round on Montoya and spun up the monitor – proper into the again of a jet dryer. (Should you’re not acquainted with NASCAR’s jet dryers, they’re mainly jet engines hooked as much as trailers on the again of a truck, and so they’re pulled across the monitor to blow off particles and likewise to dry the racing floor).
The impression prompted an enormous fireball to erupt from the jet dryer as Montoya’s automotive slid down the monitor and got here to relaxation on the backside of the flip. And it additionally despatched all the jet gas pouring on to the monitor.
To make issues worse although, Terry Labonte then drove by the gas that had soaked the monitor, and a spark from his automotive ignited the large quantities of gas, engulfing the monitor – and the jet dryer – in a spectacular fireball.
Fortunately the motive force of the jet dryer, Duane Barnes, had already been in a position to escape, and though he was taken to an area hospital for remedy, walked away with comparatively minor accidents.
Observe crews labored furiously to extinguish the enormous inferno earlier than it prompted irreparable injury to the floor of the monitor and compelled NASCAR to name the race prematurely. And after they had been in a position to get the fireplace put out, the monitor crew then introduced out a particular cleansing agent to get the rest of the gas out of the floor of the monitor.
Simply kidding: They used packing containers of powdered Tide laundry detergent to scrub the monitor down.
Tide,Will get It Tremendous Clear NASCAR’s Jet Gasoline Observe Cleaner. With 40 to go. #Daytona500 pic.twitter.com/HLGO7hO9
— Dave Varner (@SuperDave959) February 28, 2012
The complete episode prompted an over two hour delay within the race. And whereas they waited, one driver gave us a real-time view of what was happening: Brad Keselowski whipped out his cellphone and began tweeting photos from his racecar and updating us on how the automotive was dealing with.
Hearth!
My view pic.twitter.com/RWn3xMn6— Brad Keselowski (@keselowski) February 28, 2012
Due to Keselowski’s tweet, NASCAR finally determined to place an finish to drivers tweeting from their vehicles throughout pink flags, banning cell telephones from the vehicles later within the season.
Oh, and that wasn’t all that Keselowski was as much as through the break: He additionally had a reasonably epic foot race to the port-a-john with Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I went into the portajohn and almost threw up I used to be so exhausted. Additionally, don’t go right into a portajohn to catch your breath. THAT is unquestionably not the place. https://t.co/029fBvRFlR
— Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) February 15, 2022
Montoya clearly wasn’t in a position to proceed on within the race as soon as it restarted, and afterwards he expressed his shock in regards to the weird incident:
“One thing fell within the rear of the automotive and the automotive simply spun into the jet dryer. I felt a vibration and got here in. They checked out every little thing and every little thing was okay and I nonetheless advised them ‘I believe there’s something broke’ and I used to be coming again into the pits and the automotive simply spun by itself…
I’ve hit quite a lot of issues—however a jet dryer?”
Even then-NASCAR President Mike Helton, who has been with the game since 1994, stated it was not like something he had ever seen:
“You’ll assume after 65 years and working all of the races that NASCAR has run … that you just’ve seen about every little thing. You do take into consideration, ‘Oh, my gosh, if that may occur, what else can occur?’”
After the race, it was decided that the injury to the burned part of the monitor was extra in depth than beforehand thought, so the affected space was fully eliminated and resurfaced previous to NASCAR’s return to Daytona for the Pepsi 400 in July.
Oh, and as for the automotive that Montoya was driving that day? Effectively, the notorious “jet dryer automotive” now lives on Dale Earnhardt Jr’s property in his well-known “race automotive graveyard.”
“I’ve this automotive within the race automotive graveyard.”@DaleJr recalled Juan Pablo Montoya’s incident with a jet dryer within the 2012 Daytona 500, and an epic footrace with @Keselowski that resulted. #WednesDale pic.twitter.com/lVdriMYFNV
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) June 6, 2018
That’s positively some of the distinctive items of NASCAR memorabilia – from one of many more odd moments within the sport’s historical past.
