Big One brings carnage for half the Daytona field

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- It's been said that restrictor-plate racing can be compared to a cattle stampede. If that's the case, Saturday night's Coke Zero 400 included an incident which considerably thinned the herd.

Touched off by contact between Jeff Burton and Kurt Busch on the backstretch, the Lap 148 accident wound up involving at least 20 cars and changed the complexion of the race from that point forward. Gone for the rest of the evening were luminaries like Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart and Juan Montoya. And as a result, Reed Sorenson, Mike Bliss and Scott Speed scored unexpected top-10 finishes.

Crashfest at Daytona

• Final laps get wild
• Big One at Daytona
• Busch crashes out of lead
• Ragan triggers three-car wreck

Thankfully no one was injured but the sheer number of destroyed cars overwhelmed NASCAR's safety force. It took nearly 20 minutes of red-flag time to clean up the mess, and by the time the race was resumed, the garage area was littered with the debris of cars that once were capable of going 190 mph.

The scariest moment may have been several seconds after the initial crash, when Mark Martin drove his battered No. 5 Chevrolet down pit road as flames licked from underneath the right-front fender. He finally stopped and was safely pulled from the car as firefighters put out the fire, which had spread underneath the hood.

"The fire was outside. It wasn't inside," Martin said. "It wasn't as bad as it looked. No big deal. I wish we hadn't been in that wreck. There was no way. I couldn't see anything and I couldn't get down. My spotter said get down. Well, I was going too fast."

Despite triggering the melee, Burton and Busch were able to continue. Busch who spun onto the apron but kept his No. 2 Dodge aimed in the correct direction, wound up seventh.

"I had a good run down the back straightaway, but not enough on Jeff Burton," Busch said. "I gave him two moves, he gave me two blocks. I lifted and got tapped from behind and got loose. That's when the big wreck all got started.

"One guy checks up and everybody comes in and piles on." (Continued)