[align=center][/color][sm=groupwave.gif][/color][/align][align=center]Monte Carlo Wins[/align][align=center]Top **Four postions **[/align][align=center]1. 2. 3. & 4[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Winner Kevin Harvick Chevrolet Monte Carlo[/align][align=center][sm=groupwave.gif][sm=groupwave.gif][sm=groupwave.gif][/align][align=center]2nd Place Mark Martin[/align][align=center]Chevrolet Monte Carlo[/align][align=center]Thanks Chevrolet & Monte Carlo[/align][align=center]SIX (6)Monte Carlo's in the TOP TEN : )[/align][align=center][/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Mark what did U say ? Mark: I love Chevrolet Monte Carlo[/align][align=center]One 4 the US ARMY TEAM[/align][align=center][sm=groupwave.gif][sm=groupwave.gif][/align][align=center]
What a finishA hard-charging Kevin Harvick nosed out Mark Martin at the finish line Sunday to win the Daytona 500 in a green-white-checkered finish that included a multiple-car crash on the last lap. The veteran Martin remained winless at Daytona. More[/align][align=center]Jeff Burton 3[/color]rd Place Chevrolet Monte Carlo[/align][align=center]Mike Wallace4th Place ChevroletMonte Carlo[/align][align=center][sm=groupwave.gif][sm=groupwave.gif][/align][align=center]9th Place, Joe Nemechek ChevroletMonte Carlo[/align][align=center]10th Place Jeff Gordon Monte Carlo[/align][align=center]WoW, what a way to start the season. This race [/align][align=center][color=#0000ff]will be an instant Classic : )[/align][align=center][/align][align=center][:-] Click below 4 unofficial results of Daytona 500[:-][/align][align=center]http://www.nascar.com/races/cup/2007...nofficial.html[/align][align=center][/align][align=center][:-]Members, post what U thought of the Race [:-][/align][align=center]On a 1 to 10, how would U rate the 500 ?[/align][align=center][sm=feedback.gif][/align]

 

Excellent!

What's the deal with Toyota trying to run with the American muscle machines?I am not keen on Japanese motorworks infiltrating the NASCAR scene. I'm by no means predjudiced against Japan, just like American cars over Japanese cars. Just for something that is as American stock car racing, having a Japanese competitor seems a bit strange.

What does everyone else think about this?

 

AWESOME WIN for my guy Harvick!! He's been my driver since he took over Dale Sr's ride. Always liked RCR, and the #31 in 3rd was cool, but 07 of Clint Bowyer finishing 18th on his roof and on fire was pretty wild way to finish, too!

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2319272

 

[align=center][/align][align=center][/align][align=center]$ 18,000.000.00[/align][align=center]Eighteen Million Dollar Purse[/align][align=center]for the Daytona 500[/align][align=center]Racing is Big Business[/align][align=center]Winner gets over One & a Half Million[/align][align=center]Last Place gets close to a quarter of a Million.[/align][align=center]plus[/align][align=center][/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Kevin gets bonus from all sponsor's + + + +[/align][align=center]Another reason -Why the drivers race Crazy : )[/align][align=center]Martin finds himself odd man out ... again[/align]DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- There was the 46-point penalty that cost him the championship in 1990, and the 89-point penalty that effectively took him out of the title hunt 12 years later. But all the heartache of Mark Martin's star-crossed career was crystallized Sunday, when the Daytona 500 he never should have been in somehow got away.

It was the ultimate twist of the knife, a swallowed yellow flag as cars crashed and tumbled and burned on the final lap at Daytona International Speedway, a delay that allowed Kevin Harvick to slip by on the high side and win the sport's biggest race.
[/align][/align]Forget all those warnings against racing back to the flag. Forget freezing the field. Instead, 185,000 people witnessed a judgment call that will be debated among race fans for years.
And the odd man out, as usual, was Martin, who was supposed to have raced at Daytona for the final time last year and slipped into semi-retirement with an 0-for-43 record at NASCAR's most famous track. But then he signed a part-time deal with new team owner Bobby Ginn, and then he returned to a speedway he seemed so relieved to walk away from, and then he found himself in the lead with one lap to go.
It was only a setup to a cruel finish.
Martin swerved his No. 01 car left and right to block the advances of Kyle Busch. But he couldn't stop Harvick, flying by in the outside lane, and pulling almost nose-to-nose as cars behind them began to wiggle and slide. Everyone braced for a caution flag that never came, and Harvick had the few feet he needed to glide by and win by inches.


[/align][/align]Officially, the race ended under green. A series spokesman said the caution flag didn't come out until the No. 07 car of Clint Bowyer began rolling up the racetrack, a burning husk of a Chevrolet that eventually came to rest in the infield grass. By that time, Harvick was on his way to Victory Lane. And NASCAR's nebulous system of justice had denied Martin once again.
"That's at NASCAR's discretion, to decide when they want to end the race. They kept it going for certainly longer than they could have for the best result for Mark," said Jack Roush, Martin's former car owner. "But they wanted to see it go as long as it could, and I think throwing the caution wouldn't have affected the number of cars that would have been wrecked or what happened

 

i dont care to much for MARTIN but that was his win
Mark was robbed

 

it was a very good race yesterday but.......i would have much rather seen martin win it than harvick...

i think it would have been nice to see him win

good race though

 

Updated:2007-02-18 23:55:08Harvick Wins Daytona 500 in Photo Finish
Martin Falls Short in Bid to Finally Win Event
By JENNA FRYER AP & MCF `Space


.DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Feb. 18) - So focused was Mark Martin on hard-charging Kevin Harvick, he had no inkling of the chaos unfolding behind him. With less than a mile to go in the Daytona 500, Kyle Busch's car was spinning. Clint Bowyer's was upside down and on fire. Five other cars bumped and banged, careening into one another in a smoke-filled mass of twisted metal.

With the checkered flag in sight, Martin simply came up short - a mere length of a car hood - in a wild, wreck-filled finish.

Harvick beat the sentimental favorite to win NASCAR's premier race Sunday, six years to the day after Dale Earnhardt was killed on the final lap. Just days after his death, it was Harvick who was hired to replace him, and he rewarded Richard Childress with the car owner's second Daytona 500 victory - Earnhardt won the other in 1998.

"This had to be the wildest Daytona 500 I've ever watched," Childress said. "I kept my eyes shut there for a little while it was so wild."

It took several moments for NASCAR to declare the winner, finally giving it to Harvick and spoilind sg what would have been the biggest victory of the 48-year-old Martin's career.

"I really wanted to win that thing," Martin said. "They were going to have to pry it out of my fingers, man."

Harvick did just that, never letting off the gas as he charged from 29th to first in 22 laps.
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"My go-kart experience over the winter paid off, because I didn't let off the floor and we just kept hitting things and the wall and bouncing off everything," Harvick said. "But man, this is the Daytona 500. Can you believe it?"

After a cheating scandal nearly ruined the Great American Race, it was just the finish NASCAR needed to put racing back in the spotlight.

Five teams were busted for breaking the rules during Speedweeks - including two-time winner Michael Waltrip, who broke the NASCAR code by tampering with his fuel before qualifying and humilated Toyota in its Nextel Cup debut.

The scandal put the sport in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, and NASCAR ratcheted up its penalty process to prevent its biggest race from turning into a joke.

Finishes like this one might fix everything.

"Anytime there's a good race on the racetrack, it helps mend things," Harvick said. "But I think it's still going to take a little bit to get over some of the issues that happened."

For at least one night, the talk will be of the victory Martin had in his sight and the way Harvick yanked it from him.

Martin, making his 23rd attempt at a 500 win, could see the checkered flag when Harvick barreled along the outside of him. Just as Harvick pushed into the lead, Busch wiggled behind them and bumped into Matt Kenseth to start a melee.

Kenseth was spinning and Greg Biffle was, too. Bowyer flipped onto his roof and through the grass, flames shooting through the windshield.

But Harvick and Martin continued to race side by side, waiting for NASCAR to call for a caution. When it finally came, Harvick and Martin were at the finish line, and Harvick was just barely ahead. The winning margin was .020 seconds, and NASCAR had to review the tape just to be sure who was going to Victory Lane. It's a Big $$ Money Game

 

Bigg J, Darrell Waltrip made a good point before the race on Sunday. The Toyota Camry is the only car in NASCAR that is actually made in the U.S.Chargers and Montes are made in Canada and Fusions are made in Mexico. Toyota employs 7,000 people to build their cars in KY alone. So who is really the American car????

 

Posted on Tue, Feb. 13, 2007[/align]
email this[/align]print this[/align][/align][/align]Foreign import Toyota worries NASCAR
As Toyota embarks on its first season in Nextel Cup, established teams from U.S. manufacturers are complaining about unfair business practices.
BY SARAH ROTHSCHILD
srothschild@MiamiHerald.com

[/align]GREG ELLMAN / FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM[/align]GETTING PAID: Dale Jarrett's two-year, $20 million deal to drive a Toyota beginning this year has been a primary source of complaint by other NASCAR teams.[/align][ul][*]Toyota's brave new world [/ul][/align]Fear is heightened, the tension is rising and Jack Roush is ready to go to ``war.'
The NASCAR season doesn't get under way for another five days, but the longtime car owner has been more apt to talk about new Cup manufacturer Toyota using warlike rhetoric than endearing niceties.
'We will not be intimidated by any new team or manufacturer that comes in,' said Roush, who fields five Ford cars in Nextel Cup. ``Toyota will not find that established teams will wither in their path. We're going to war with them, and they should give us their best shot.
``I'm preparing myself for siege.'
Roush has been one of the most outspoken critics about Toyota's entry into Cup as the series' first full-time foreign manufacturer, but he is hardly alone in his concerns. Many in NASCAR circles argue the Japanese automaker -- which will field seven Cup teams this season -- has begun to alter the landscape of the series.
Toyota teams weren't a threat in Daytona 500 pole qualifying Sunday, with only one car in the top 15 and Michael Waltrip's car being confiscated after his run because NASCAR officials discovered an unknown substance in his engine. There are eight Toyota cars vying to start in the Daytona 500, and six must qualify on speed.
Off the track, Toyota's moves have caused concern. Dan Davis, director of Ford Racing Technology, characterized Toyota's practices as predatory because of the way it has lured drivers and top crew and engineering talent from existing teams with high salaries.
Lee White, senior vice president and general manager of Toyota Racing and Development, said it's 'unnerving' that Toyota has been cast as a foreign invader, even though its Camry is the only NASCAR Cup car built in the United States. The Ford Fusion is built in Mexico, and the Dodge Charger and Chevrolet Monte Carlo are built in Canada. White also said Toyota is a major player in the American economy because the company and its dealers employ nearly 150,000 Americans.
But in NASCAR, there are worries because, just as Toyota is surging worldwide, American manufacturers are facing a bleak forecast

 

TOUCHE`!! I guess I should just have an open mind about the whole thing and let the evolution of racing take it's course!![:-]

The only other point I can make about that whole thing is the marketing ploy of it all (having them built here, that is). The final dollar still ends up in Japan. I just get this image of a Japanese Fat-Cat in apinstripe suit wearing a cowboy hat and smoking a cigar while watchinga race from the owner's box and laughing sadistically. If Toyota starts to win, that is the image I see.