 | | Dale Jarrett finished fifth thanks to patient pit strategy. Credit: Autostock |
By Ryan Smithson, NASCAR.COM
July 4, 2005
02:07 PM EDT (18:07 GMT)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Dale Jarrett helped steal a second straight top-five finish with patient pit strategy, which worked out because of a late rash of cautions in the Pepsi 400. Jarrett finished fifth at Sonoma last week after stretching his fuel to the max, and he got out of Daytona with a solid finish after spending just 39 laps in the top 10. The run put Jarrett in the top 10 in points for the first time since Talladega. Crew chief Billy Wilburn had just pitted Jarrett on Lap 101, but when the caution flew for Boris Said's spin through the grass, Wilburn had Jarrett pit again. "We pitted at 101, turned right around and pitted again 114," Wilburn said, "Four or five leaders stayed out. That put us in a sequence with the whole field." The Lap 101 pit stop was the key for Jarrett and might have a major impact if he makes the Chase for the Nextel Cup. When Jarrett reached Lap 100, he hadn't spent a single lap in the top 10, but while he was on pit road, Bobby Hamilton Jr. exploding tire brought out the caution. That enabled Jarrett to stay out while the whole field pitted. "You kind of know that things are going your way when we made it on fuel mileage last week and then tonight we were on pit road for our green flag stop and the caution came out," Jarrett said. "That got me the opportunity to lead a lap, so everything is working pretty good right now." Jarrett also got a good break when he didn't get caught up in the final crash of the night -- he was running right behind Kevin Harvick when it happened, and he drove down pit road to avoid it. "We passed a few cars and got lucky when that pile of them crashed," said Wilburn. "The way it worked out, we had four tires at the end with only two green flag laps on them, and we were in eighth place at the time it all shook out. "He did the rest." Kenseth rallies despite damage Matt Kenseth got a top-10 finish despite a run-in with Kasey Kahne late in the event.  |  | | Matt Kenseth |
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Kenseth took four tires during the next-to-last caution because he was one of the last cars on the lead lap. He was able to avoid the last crash, and he got up to ninth. "I had to pit at the end. That took us out of it a little bit, but we still came back to finish ninth, so it could have been worse," Kenseth said. Vickers loses top-10 run in late pit accident Things got a bit dicey during the final round of pit stops, when most of the lead lap cars came to pit road. |  | | Brian Vickers |
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Ryan Newman was trying to avoid a spinning Robby Gordon when he cut in front of Vickers, and Vickers plowed right into Newman's Dodge. "[Newman] tried to make it three lanes across pit road for whatever reason," said Vickers. "I just talked to his guys and his crew chief said that there was somebody in front of him that wrecked, so that's why he had to do that." Quotable "We didn't see the accident on pit road coming. That kind of hurt our chances. We had to make an extra pit stop to get rid of the tire rub and when we got back out there just wasn't enough time to make up that much ground. We had to settle for a top 15." -- Ryan Newman, who was caught up in an accident on pit road | 
