Truex Jr Nearly Reels In Harley Earl J. Trophy

Martin Truex Jr (78) missed beating Denny Hamlin (11) by four inches.

(Google Images)

Furniture Row Racing owner Barney Visser expected a slow start to the season. With his team switching from Chevrolet to Toyota over the winter and receiving chassis from Joe Gibbs Racing that were a tad outdated, Visser felt his team wouldn't be a contender right away.

He said this, despite the fact that things began to look up after they made this switch. After running for a Sprint Cup title last season, Bass Pro Shops announced they would sponsor Truex Jr in nine events this season, beginning with Daytona. FRR also announced last week that Auto-Owners Insurance will sponsor the team for three races. Not bad for a team that hasn't had a sponsor since it began a decade ago.

Then they ran the Daytona 500 and, after wrecking in both the Sprint Unlimited and their Can-Am Duel race, Visser's little Camry from Colorado came within four inches of a Daytona 500 trophy.

"I just said 'Damn, that was close,'" Truex said after the race. He missed beating Toyota teammate Denny Hamlin by .010 of a second, the closest finish in the 58-year history of the "Great American Race." You'd rather lose by a few feet than a few inches," Truex continued.

If only the bass on his hood would've stuck his tongue out. Then maybe Truex would've been able to reel in his first Harley J. Earl Trophy.

It wasn't a complete shock to see Hamlin win. He had won the Sprint Unlimited, barely got beat by Dale Earnhardt Jr in his Duel race and led 95 of the 200 laps in the Daytona 500. In addition, Hamlin's Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Matt Kenseth won the second Can Am Duel qualifier. Speedweeks had been dominated by JGR Toyota's, and Sunday's big race was no different.

Polesitter Chase Elliott led the field to green and got out to an early lead before being passed by teammate, and race favorite, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Piloting "Amelia," the car named for Amelia Earhart which netted Jr three wins, a second and a third in last year's plate races, NASCAR's favorite son was again poised to take the victory in it's most storied race. That is if he could beat the JGR freight train at the front of the pack.

Dale Jr had a rough 500, wrecking Amelia, his favorite
restrictor plate car (Google Images)

While Jr planned on using his prolific plate racing skills to bob and weave to the front, the Gibbs Toyota's saw strength in numbers. They, along with Truex's No. 78 Camry, would run single file and block for each other in hopes that one of them would wind up in victory lane. But Jr, last year's winner Joey Logano, and a host of others couldn't best the Toyota train JGR had created.

While many thought the Hendrick cars might be able to do it, lap 20 showed just how long of a day HMS was about to have. Just shy of two dozen laps into the 200 lap event, Elliott got sideways trying to side draft off of turn four. He spun his car around without hitting anything, put when the front of his car looped back around, it dug into a drain in the infield grass and nearly ripped the nose off his No. 24 Chevy.

Then, with just 29 laps to go, Dale Jr did the same thing Elliott did. And he was just as lucky.

Side-drafting off turn four, trying to work his proven car back to the front, he got loose and spun to the entrance of pit road. But instead of spinning back around, his car stayed straight and slid nose-first into the inside retaining wall. Amelia would not get the chance to back up her Daytona win from last July. Now, she will no doubt be put to pasture in the woods on Earnhardt Jr's, where so many other wrecked race cars have famously found their final resting place.

The race also saw Brian Vickers spin, collecting the No. 7 of Regan Smith and the No. 19 of Carl Edwards (who nosed hard into the outside wall), Matt DiBenedetto wreck hard with Chris Buescher, and Danica Patrick spinning herself off the nose of Greg Biffle's No. 16. But Earnhardt Jr's wreck was the spin heard 'round the world, as he was a heavy favorite to topple the Toyota teammates at the front of the pack.

But now, with the strongest car out of the race, it was Kenseth's race to lose. He kept his teammates in line, simply following the leader, while Hamlin desperately tried to find a way to get around him. To show the strength this group had, Edwards' right front fender was nearly torn off and covered in bare bond from the Vickers spin and he was still running inside the top ten most of the day.

It appeared Kenseth was on track to win his third Daytona 500, until the last lap. That's when Hamlin slid up in front of Kevin Harvick as the outside line gained momentum. Down the backstretch, Hamlin inched closer to the front. Truex had a chance to pull in front and make some headway, but stayed on the bottom, as perhaps he was able to predict what Kenseth did next.

In the middle of turns three and four,

Danica Patrick does a little agricultural racing at Daytona
(Google Images)

Kenseth slid up to block Hamlin, making a lane for Truex to pass them both. The only problem was that Kenseth got loose and let Hamlin slide underneath him. Off of four and down the short shoot, Hamlin and Truex were in a dead heat for the lead. Truex nosed ahead, but as they came to the line, Hamlin's No. 11 slid in front by what proved to be four inches. He bested Truex by 0.10 seconds, the closest Daytona 500 ever. It was the infamous 1959 Lee Petty, Johnny Beauchamp photo finish for a new generation.

Truex knows this finish and the idea of what might have been will haunt him for the rest of his career. Hamlin hoisting the Harley J. Earl Trophy showed the thrill of victory, while Truex was resigned to taste the agony of defeat. But once the initial disappointment wore off, the Manahawkin, New Jersey native could see the big picture.

"I'm proud of what we did," Truex said after the race. "It's my best finish ever in this race. Probably one of the strongest runs I've ever had at a restrictor plate track throughout the entire day. It was a big day for us for a lot of reasons. I realize the position I'm in, the opportunities I'm going to have this year. I'm going to have a lot more opportunities to win races. I feel like we did everything right today to put ourselves in position to win."

So it sounds like Truex and his Furniture Row team will be just fine after all. This race was a big statement for this little team. They will be fighting for a seat at the head table in Vegas this year, and don't be surprised if Truex and his team are sitting on stage at the Wynn when the dust settles.

Stewart to Miss Start of Final Season With Back Injury

Tony Stewart will miss the first part of his final season in
NASCAR (Google Images)

Just when you think things can't get more interesting for Tony Stewart, he finds a new way to surprise us.

In 2013, he broke his leg in a dirt car race in Upstate New York prior to the Cup Series race at Watkins Glen. He missed the rest of the season due to his recovery. The next year, on that same race weekend, Stewart accidentally struck and killed Kevin Ward, Jr participating in a dirt track event at Canandaigua Motorsports Park. He has been embroiled in litigation since and has yet to run a dirt car since the accident.

But last season, he announced that 2016 would be his final year on tour and that Clint Bowyer would be the heir to his No. 14 Chevy. He has said that he's more physically fit and in the best shape he's ever been in. It looked like Smoke was going to rise back to the top and have a chance to leave NASCAR a champion, the same shot that Jeff Gordon had this past year.

But Sunday afternoon, while driving in the sand dunes in California with a group that included fellow driver Greg Biffle, Stewart had an accident that resulted in a burst fracture of his L1 vertebrae.He will miss the first part of the Sprint Cup season as a result, including his final shot to win the Daytona 500. Stewart, a three-time Cup Series champion, has not won the "Great American Race" in 17 attempts.

Biffle, who runs sand cars on a regular basis as a hobby, was driving with Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Ray Evernham and drag racer Don "Snake" Prudhomme. Both Biffle and Prudhomme said that, in the dust and sand, Stewart simply got lost from the group.

Stewart was driving a car similar to this when he had
his accident (Google Images)

"What really happened is, it isn't hard to get split off from one another," Prudhomme told NBC Sports. "In other words, if a guy makes a left turn and you're not watching his flags or there's dust or something, you can make a right turn and kind of get lost." Biffle told SiriusXM that he "wasn't near what went on," but that he had started "hearing bits and pieces that he hurt his back."

Prudhomme said that they found Stewart about 90 minutes later. "There was about three of us who went back on our buggies and we came upon him. He was laying there. He got out of it (the sand buggy) and was laying there in the sand on his back." The drag racing legend also said that Stewart was able to move all of his extremities.

There is no timetable set for Stewart's return, but he underwent spinal stabilization surgery on February 3 and could possibly return to the track in May for the Sprint All-Star Race in Charlotte. No substitute has been named to pinch hit (errr... pinch drive) for Stewart either. Bowyer has already inked a one-year commitment with HScott Motorsports to drive the No. 15 5 Hour Energy/Peak Motor Oil Chevy for the 2016 season, so he most likely won't get behind the wheel of Stewart's car until next season, as originally planned.