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NASCAR Gatorade Duel

February 24, 2012 by · Comments Off on NASCAR Gatorade Duel 

NASCAR Gatorade Duel, On the very first lap of the initial NASCAR Gatorade Duel race at Daytona Robby Gordon’s right front began to smoke, a thing the long time racer did not want to see since he had to race his way into the 43 car field of the Daytona 500 come Sunday.

Luckily for Gordon, a caution came out when Juan Pablo Montoya, Paul Menard and David Gilliland got into each other on lap eight, which clearly gave Gordon a fighting chance. His team made the required repairs during their pit stop and as for Gordon, well he marched his way towards the front with a seventh place finish to earn himself a spot in “The Great American Race.” Oh, man, this thing is going to blow up,” said Gordon of the oil going onto the motor which ultimately caused panic for his team.

Another driver to make it into the race during the first duel, Michael McDowell who placed a spot ahead of Gordon in sixth. However, Michael Waltrip also needed to get into the race with a good showing, but as he left the pits he collected some debris from the track apron and spun out on pit exit. The error left Waltrip’s car damaged upon impact with the outside wall and for the first time since 1972 a Waltrip will not be racing in the Daytona 500.

In her very first Sprint Cup race action Danica Patrick consistently stayed in the middle of the pack throughout the Duel race and came within two corners of finishing. That was until Aric Almirola’s car came down and hit Patrick’s No.10 car on the side, which ultimately sent her way off course and very hard into the inside wall. Her GoDaddy.com sponsored Chevrolet folded rather quickly at the front and she’ll have to go to her back-up car for her first 500 mile stock-car race. “Maybe the back-up car will be faster,” Patrick optimistically said during a post-race interview on SPEED TV.

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