Winston Cup cars damaged in practice accident

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A backstretch chain-reaction accident Friday morning in practice damaged no less than four qualified cars for Sunday’s Daytona 500, causing the Bondo dust to fly in the Winston Cup garage.

Ricky Craven's No. 32 Tide Ford unavoidably set off the fracas when its engine blew while running in a tight draft with Dale Jarrett. Craven said Jarrett had to make an abrupt move to the right to avoid him, stacking up the pack at the head of the backstretch. When the dust settled, Kyle Petty’s No. 45 Sprint Dodge was the most badly damaged, suffering severe front and rear sheet metal deformities.

Terry Labonte’s No. 5 Kellogg’s Chevrolet, Dave Marcis’ No. 71 Realtree Chevrolet and Brett Bodine’s No. 11 Wells Fargo Financial/Timberland Ford all suffered some degree of body damage and all were being repaired Friday afternoon.

Dave Marcis. Credit: Action Sports

Labonte had the third fastest lap of 38 cars that practiced, at 188.949 miles per hour. Front row starter Kevin Harvick led the session at 189.243 mph in the No. 29 Goodwrench Chevrolet. Craven (188.186) and Bodine (188.037) were seventh and eighth in the session while Marcis was 27th and Petty, 37th.

“They said one of the cars was running in the middle of the race track when we came off Turn 2,” Petty said. “Everybody checked up and it just compounded -- I got into the back of Terry (Labonte) and Marcis got into the back of me and that was all it was.”

The teams of Petty, Bodine and Marcis made planned engine changes later Friday. Labonte’s team made repairs to the “TV panel” and left rear fender and Marcis’ team -- with big help from a couple fabricators from Richard Childress Racing -- repaired the left front fender and nose of the veteran’s car, which will carry him in his final Winston Cup start Sunday.

“Richard said his fabricators could do a better job,” crew chief Rob Marcis said. “We just took the engine and radiator out, which we were changing anyway, and got out of the way.”

Bodine’s team -- which said its driver had also driven into Petty’s car’s rear -- made major repairs to the front of its Taurus while Petty’s crew effected repairs to the right front and right rear of their Intrepid.

“We were changing engines anyhow, so that didn’t make a difference,” Petty said. “It tore up the nose more than anything. The (rear) quarter panel is not that bad.”

The teams of Todd Bodine, who did not practice Friday morning, and Jeremy Mayfield also made body repairs Friday that were not related to the incident.

This was the second multiple car Winston Cup Series accident during a practice session at Speedweeks. On Tuesday, Bobby Hamilton, Jeff Burton and Todd Bodine were involved in a practice wreck.