#00-Jason Leffler did everything he could to win Friday night’s Winn-Dixie 250 at Daytona International Speedway. In the eyes of NASCAR, however, he went too far. Between Turns 3 and 4 of the final of 100 laps, Leffler, the leader at time, moved to the high side of the track to block the fast approach of #81-Dale Earnhardt Jr. Leffler hit the left side of Earnhardt Jr.’s #81 KFC Chevrolet, sending him into the wall. While Leffler and Earnhardt Jr. tangled, #4-Mike Wallace dove to the bottom of the track, passed Leffler exiting Turn 4 and escaped with the victory. It’s the fourth NASCAR Busch Series win of Wallace’s career and his first since August 1994 at Indianapolis. “You never give up. Leffler was leading, he saw (Earnhardt) Jr. go to the outside and I thought about going with him because I wanted to get a top-five,” Wallace said. “But I had a good car and I wasn’t giving up.” Neither did NASCAR, which 20 minutes after the race was over, announced it had penalized Leffler one second for “unnecessary roughness,” sending Leffler from second to 13th in the running order. “I don’t know what to say to that, it’s a shame,” Leffler said of the penalty. “That’s what you get here in restrictor-plate racing, so it’s difficult, but we’ll take that finish and go on.” Earnhardt Jr. finished 17th and was none-too-happy after the race. “We were running up on (Leffler) and I went to the outside and he just run us in the wall, ain’t no other way to put it,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “He took us out, crashed us, wrecked us, whatever you want to call it. I had a run on him and we was going to race to the finish and neither one of us got to do that.” The wild finish was set up in part on the next to last lap, when Leffler battled then-leader #99-Michael Waltrip for the lead. The two made contact, which sent Waltrip spinning and out of contention for the win. “He just slid up in front of me and I just got into him to get him going, trying to ‘bump-draft,'” Leffler said. “He just came out on the bad end of it. He was a little sideways when I got into him. I apologize to Michael and his team. There was no intention to take him out.” Waltrip’s team didn’t appreciate the incident, however, and after the race Waltrip and Leffler’s crews tangled on pit road. NASCAR officials are investigating the incident. After the scoring adjustment, #60-Greg Biffle was credited with second, series points leader #8-Martin Truex Jr. third, #47-Robert Pressley fourth and pole-winner #20-Mike Bliss completed the top-five.(Thatsracin.com Race Report), Wallace led only ONE lap, the most important one, the last one.(7-2-2004)
See race results at:
ThatsRacin.com
BGNRacing.com
Motorsports One
NASCAR.com.(7-2-2004)
