Catchfence

The Firecracker 400 turned into The 24 Hours Of Daytona of 2010 Part Three in what will qualify as the most bizarre season in Daytona’s history. It was crazy enough that the 500 was delayed twice by a pothole; now this Firecracker 400 got delayed by rain and then saw one of the biggest wrecks in several years, and it all came days after another pothole had to be filled in. Yet is says something about Daytona that 2010 witnessed some of the most bizarre obstacles the track had to overcome to hold its races, and when it was all over the Winston Cup cars put on two of the greatest races the track has ever seen.

With all that the Firecracker 400 saw some glaring examples of a phenomenon that tends to get lost in the shuffle. With all the talk about drivers and their successes, this Firecracker illustrated the reality of drivers and their failures. The NFL is replete with draft busts; the Firecracker displayed several drivers who qualify as drafting busts.

NASCAR drafting busts are not a new phenomenon but amid the spectacle of the most competitive Firecracker 400 ever the ineptitude of several drivers stood out and also brought to the fore that their careers have been illusory rather than real. A look at some drafting busts in the present-day Cup series and their lowlights in this Firecracker -

Reed Sorenson – He finished eighth in the Firecracker 400, a fact that graphically qualifies as the exception that proves the rule about his career. Once a Chip Ganassi development driver, he won twice in the Busch/Nationwide series in 2005 before being elevated to a fulltime Cup ride. He still ran BGN in 2006 but didn’t particularly distinguish himself, and between BGN and Cup he led 122 laps, less than a third of the over 400 he led in BGN in 2005. Instead of getting better, he steadily got worse, making less and less effort at a fight for anything. When the Ganassi ride finally dried up he was signed by the Petty-Gillett group and got the #43; he finished a surprising 8th at Daytona and then fell off the map, never fighting for any kind of position and finishing with an insultingly meager five laps led.

It stood as zero surprise that Sorenson was demoted to BGN before injury to Brian Vickers reopened his Cup career. That he has such is a genuine shock given his timidity as a racer and the lack of any improvement in his racing worthy of the name.

J.J. YELEY – The last time we saw him in NASCAR he was riding around out back in Joe Gibbs’ #18; it so soured Gibbs that he demoted Yeley to the ill-fated Troy Aikman-Roger Staubach #96 for 2008. Yeley, a former short track star in USAC, showed zero fight in any race he entered in stock cars.

SAM HORNISH JR. – What is this guy doing in stock cars? It is a question worth badgering him with after he tried an Ernie Irvan move in the Firecracker 400 and caused a wreck as a result. The subpar numbers don’t even tell the story of his unfitness for stock cars – what tells the story is the sheer lack of any fire or competence he displays in any race.

It is an indictment of a driver whose cowardice as a stock car driver still stands in contrast to his sheer ferocity as an Indycar racer. First showing some muscle in 2000, Hornish was signed by Panther Racing and by 2001′s end had whipped his Panther #4 to a title. By the end of his IRL career he’d exploded to 19 wins and over 3,400 laps led, but beyond the wins was the sheer elan of his racing – no one sidedrafted for the lead in an IRL race better than he did, and it produced two straight victories at Chicagoland in nonstop sidedraft battles ending in photo finishes, plus back-to-back wins at the September-October Lone Star 500k at Texas, a dramatic Fontana win in 2002, and heartbreaking loss at the Michigan Indy 400 in 2003.

That he could race so spectacularly in IRL and fail so miserably in stock cars is breathtaking.

JUAN MONTOYA – We’re still waiting for that win on an oval, Juan.

He won at Sears Point in 2007 and the sport thought it was just the start of a spectacular run of succes. Instead all he’s produced is a strong run of top-five finishes and several bouts where he’s led with authority. For a driver as accomplished (and hyped) as he’s been, it is fairly thin result, and beyond the mediocre numbers are the bouts of recklessness – hooking Kyle Busch head-on into the wall is bad enough; doing it because you’re being lapped is even more egregious; not since the 1975 Daytona 500, when David Pearson was inexplicably and very graphically spun out by Cale Yarborough with three to go, can one recall a lapped car racing the leader with this kind of stupidity.

DAVID RAGAN – He exploded to fourteen top ten finishes in 2008 and in 2009 won at Talladega in the Busch/Nationwide series in a spectacular photo finish that displayed the elan of a champion. Other than that, David Ragan has taken the flagship car of Roush-Fenway and has been as spectacularly uncompetitive as his dad Ken Ragan; indeed, one can argue David’s career has been worse, for Ken Ragan never had much money to race with – David is a driver doing very little with a lot. And it’s not getting better.

TRAVIS KVAPIL – The Craftsman Truck Series was a series that some thought would produce stars of the future; Travis Kvapil won nine times there but like such graduates as Mike Skinner, Ron Hornaday, Andy Houston, Jack Sprague, Jason Leffler, Mike Bliss, Jay Sauter, Rich Bickle, and Kenny Irwin Jr., he has produced little to nothing at the Winston Cup level. Being saddled with the Yates group certainly hurt his chances.

These drivers all raced in the Firecracker 400 and al have gone a long way toward cementing a legacy as great drafting bustgs in NASCAR history.