NASCAR Calls Off Coke Zero 400 As Aric Almirola Wins The Race

NASCAR Calls Off Coke Zero 400 As Aric Almirola Wins The Race

Although the Coke Zero 400 was called off by NASCAR, Aric Almirola was able to salvage a win before as the race ended with 48 laps to go in the scheduled 160 laps. The race was called off due to constant rain and a discouraging forecast.

The win was the first for Almirola, who was in the right place at the right time when rain started to fall. He was leading the pack when the race was called off by NASCAR at the Daytona International Speedway. Almirola drove the No.43 Ford of Richard Petty Motorsports. The win came on the thirtieth anniversary weekend of the last career victory of Petty. The last time the Petty vehicle won was in 1999 at the Martinsville Speedway.

Almirola said he used to watch the Firecracker 400 and Daytona 500 since he lived in Tampa. He added that he could not believe that he was taken to the Victory Lane by the 43 car at Daytona. Second place went to Brian Vickers while Kurt Busch came in third. Fourth and fifth place went to Casey Mears and Austin Dillon, respectively.

Aric Almirola had to steer clear of two crashes that took out a good number of cars. The first crash happened on Lap 19 and it took out 16 cars. The second, which crash involved 26 cars, caused the car of Kyle Busch to roll.

Although no one was injured in the two crashes, only six drivers were able to drive past them, including Almirola, Kurt Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Vickers, Dillon, and Mears.

Weather played a major role through the weekend. It also shortened the qualifying event last Friday, and the Saturday night ace was rescheduled to Sunday. However, the decision to stop the race was controversial since the Coke Zero 400 was supposed to be held at night, and Daytona had lights.

A number of drivers expected NASCAR to wait before announcing that the race was over.

Posted by Andre Monohan on Thursday July 10 2014, 3:53 PM EST. Ref: SB Nation. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0