Article Written By: Chris Caraveo
After a six-and-a-half hour rain delay at the Daytona 500 Sunday, Dale Earnhardt Jr. took control of the lead and won the Sprint Cup’s season opening race for the second time in his career (his first since 2004).
But to thousands of fans earlier in the day, Jimmie Johnson, six time Sprint Cup champion and two-time Daytona 500 winner, had apparently won the race. The only problem was that the race they were watching was a replay of the 2013 event that Johnson won. Among those was KTXS Sports’ Twitter account:
It was downright baffling to see that people actually thought that Johnson had won. There were plenty of things different between last year’s race and this year’s that easily distinguished the two events.
First off, new numbers and car sponsors or paint schemes. Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch both moved to Stewart Haas Racing in 2014, and also changed numbers. Harvick moved from 29 to 4 and Busch from 78 to 41. And Martin Truex Jr. now drives the No. 78. Earnhardt, Jr. had a completely different paint scheme on his car, as did other drivers.
Probably the biggest difference in this year’s race is the return of the No. 3, driven by Austin Dillon. Did any of the confused people not realize in the 2013 re-run that the hallowed 3 car was not in the race or had its number running across the ticker?
Which leads to the next point. This year’s Daytona 500 had a different ticker than last year’s race. Instead of the single-line, horizontal ticker that displayed each driver’s position in moving order, FOX showed nine drivers’ positions were shown simultaneously at the top, which was real cool to see as cars fought for position. Hopefully this is the way FOX continues to display the running order. It is faster than the old one. The single-line ticker seemed a nuisance every time the race went to a commercial but had not shown the position of the car you were checking on.
Lastly, of the people who thought Johnson had won the race, did you even watch the entire race? Or at least saw key points? The race went 37 laps before the caution for rain came out and the cars were parked on pit road. If these people paid attention to the race coverage, they would have seen this and eventually been advised that the race was in rain delay and FOX would be showing a replay of the 2013 Daytona 500. There were also pauses during the 2013 re-run where FOX analysts and reporters reminded viewers that the race was still delayed.
It should not have been hard to realize that the replay of last year’s race was not this year’s. Maybe the confused missed every single reminder and watched the re-run, thinking it was happening whatever distance away from there house it is. Maybe they didn’t see the beginning of the actual 2014 race up until the delay. This confusion is definitely face-palm material, but it is also a funny anecdote to an otherwise long but thrilling start to the NASCAR Sprint Cup season.
