DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The comments made by Jimmie Johnson over the radio sounded ridiculous at first.

"Looks like we may have a hole," the four-time defending Cup champion told his crew after suffering a cut tire that damaged the wheel well of his No. 48 car. "We may have a red flag here. Looks like a big piece of the track came up."

“

We're the World Center of Racing. This is the Daytona 500. This is not supposed to happen, and I take full responsibility.

”

-- ROBIN BRAIG

Indeed, Johnson was correct -- a hole approximately 18 inches long had developed in the lower groove of Turn 2 at Daytona International Speedway, forcing NASCAR officials to halt the Daytona 500 under a red flag Sunday afternoon. The stoppage came 122 laps into the race with Clint Bowyer in the lead.

The race was red-flagged a second time with only 39 laps remaining after the patch crumbled.

After the race, Daytona International Speedway president Robin Braig apologized for the hole and the delays that caused many fans to head to the exits long before the finish.

"We're the World Center of Racing. This is the Daytona 500. This is not supposed to happen, and I take full responsibility," Braig said. "We can come back from this. We know how to fix it. This is hallowed ground. We understand that. We accept the responsibility."

It was unclear how or when the hole developed on an area between Turns 1 and 2, but it took attention away from a strong race that had a record number of leaders. It comes at a critical time for NASCAR, which began this season by making several on-track changes designed to boost sagging TV ratings.

Speedweeks had been filled with wild races, close finishes and plenty of positive attention.

Until this.

"They need to call a caution," driver Robby Gordon said over his radio. "There are rocks everywhere. There is going to be a big wreck."

Officials initially stopped the race with 78 laps remaining in the 200-lap opener. Cars parked on pit road for about 30 minutes, then NASCAR allowed drivers to get out of their cockpits for a break. Track workers patched the hole, which was about 18 inches long and 8 inches wide, using blowtorches to heat the pavement.

It didn't last, though.

During the first red-flag period, maintenance crews worked to repair the area as the cars were parked down pit road. Drivers were eventually allowed to exit their vehicles. Although it was immediately unclear what had caused the hole to form, heavy rains had inundated Central Florida recently appeared to be the culprit.

"With the combination of the moisture and the cold temperatures, the normal solutions you normally use to patch the track are not working," NASCAR chairman Brian France told FOX. "I think we've turned the corner. We're on our third different solution, and it's going slower than we wanted it to, but we will get it solved."

NASCAR endured a similar incident at Martinsville Speedway in 2004, when a chunk of race track came up and punched through the radiator of Jeff Gordon's car. That hole took about an hour and 15 minutes to repair.

The red flag had been out for an hour and 34 minutes before drivers were called back to their cars. The Daytona racing surface hasn't been repaved in 31 years, and opinion has been mixed as to whether the old, bumpy surface needs a facelift. Braig told SceneDaily.com this week that the surface could be repaved within the next three years, a move some drivers would champion.

"Listen, this place feels like Darlington sometimes, or Atlanta," Brian Vickers said in 2008, before the notoriously rough Darlington surface was repaved. "It is wore out. I feel bad for Goodyear having to make a tire come in doing 200 mph. This place is like Darlington. So the track's getting worse."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. chimed in on the subject last year.

"The track is old," he said. "It's a terrible time to ask anyone to pave a race track, but if anyone needs it, it's probably Daytona. You just don't put on a good show. I like the bumps. If you're going to ask guys in here, they're going to say, 'Aw man, come on, the bumps are cool.' They are cool, but they'll be back. When you pave a track, the dirt underneath always settles. It'll create new bumps.

"Highways get paved more often than that, and they're only going 55, 65 down them," he added. "I'm sure if I own a race track, I'm going to pave that damn thing and get blasted because it costs a lot of money to pave it. I can understand why it doesn't happen more often, paving a race track, but they did pave Talladega and that got great reviews, everybody was real happy about it, it's real smooth, puts on good races. Maybe we'll get this thing paved before I retire."

After a red-flag delay of an hour and 40 minutes, engines refired and cars drove off pit road under caution.

The patch seemed to hold for several laps, but with about 50 laps remaining, the area began to come apart again, forcing NASCAR officials to once again throw another red flag on Lap 161 in an effort to make more repairs.

"Man, this is a bad break to be in for all of us, for NASCAR, for everybody," Kyle Busch said. "It's unfortunate. It's been a great race all day but this isn't any fun, having to wait around and try to get through this deal. But we'll do what we need to do."

Busch said the degradation of the patch was somewhat sudden.

"It stayed really good for about 15, 18 laps, and then you could see a chunk flying off some of the leader cars, [Kevin Harvick and Bowyer], the guys running the bottom, you could see pieces going," Busch said. "And then about five laps ago, I saw it start to develop and five laps later, it was back to its same old hole again."

The 2.5-mile, high-banked superspeedway was last paved in 1978 and is scheduled for $20 million repaving in 2012. But officials said it could be moved up if necessary.

"That hole's pretty bad," Earnhardt said Sunday. "Hit it. That's what killed all the momentum we had.

"It's so damn slick," he said. "It shouldn't be like this. It's 2010."

Bowyer said he broke his front splitter in the hole.

The second red-flag delay was for 46 minutes before the drivers again took to the track.

Not every driver was as eager for new asphalt on NASCAR's most famous track. Two-time Cup Series champion Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards said they like the slick surface. New pavement could mean considerably different racing at Daytona and significant cost during tough economic times.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Video:
• Tire goes down on No. 48 but all is not lost
• France comments on the track situation