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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — It was a 75-lap dress rehearsal; no, check that. It was a 79-lap dress rehearsal. It was full contact racing somewhere just shy of 200 mph.

Saturday night’s Sprint Unlimited, a non-points precursor to next weekend’s Daytona 500 opened the curtain on the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. Opened the curtain, ripped it on the way up, and eventually left it in a not-so-tidy pile on the floor. This curtain came down for certain.

Not surprisingly, a multi-car accident, one of several here at the newly revamped 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway, pushed the event into overtime.

Officials got to trot out the “Here’s how we’re going to handle it, boys” and no doubt they were pleased when a late-race yellow set up a green, white, checkered finish, which eventually went green, white, yellow and checkered.

Eventual race-winner Denny Hamlin was already beyond the “overtime line” when the final bout of mayhem erupted, and that was enough to officially put this one in the books.

Good thing. At the rate they were tearing up cars, there would have been precious few remaining had the distance of the race gone much further. There were, what, a dozen or so still circling when the race went into “overtime?” That’s less than half the field. Allegedly there were 15. I’m not so sure all 15 were running at the end.

Certainly there were more vehicles in the garage when the checkered flag finally appeared. Some on jack stands, most with their hoods up. Some listed to one side or the other. A stream of steam here, a fluid leak there. It looked more like your typical junkyard than a NASCAR garage.

Earlier in the week, Jimmie Johnson said the race weekend was a good opportunity to “knock the rust off.” It was also a good weekend to knock the 48 off — the six-time champion’s Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was last seen spinning across the inside apron/grass along the backstretch.

“I can’t even remember,” Johnson said concerning his lack of success in the event. “I don’t want any luck in this one. I want it all next Sunday.”

He’s won a previous version of this race, in 2005. He started on the pole Saturday, albeit the result of a blind draw. But recently the fates haven’t been as kind to Johnson. But he’s far from alone.

Take Brad Keselowski, for instance, the former series champion. Worked his way to the front, got trash on the grille of his Ford Fusion and had to give up the lead. Worked his way back to the front. Once again, trash managed to find the front of the No. 2 Team Penske Ford.

“I think my spotter said it best when he said it looked like there was a lot of construction debris out there,” Keselowski said, referencing the recently completed $400 million Daytona Rising project.

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“I think it’s a huge concern,” teammate Joey Logano said. “It looked like a landfill on the front straightaway.”

Logano’s father, Tom, was in the garbage business, so Logano knows trash when he sees it. “I know all about it,” he said.

Ford teams are racing a newly designed Fusion this year. Changes to the front of the car were made. Officials said the trash issue during Saturday’s race wasn’t a concern. Unless it becomes a common occurrence, of course.

Hamlin’s victory was the fourth for Joe Gibbs Racing in the last five years in the non-points race. But automaker Toyota, which clinched its first Sprint Cup driver’s championship a year ago with JGR driver Kyle Busch, hasn’t popped the cork in the winner’s circle here for a Daytona 500.

Team owner Joe Gibbs mentioned as much to Hamlin in Victory Lane.

Hamlin jokingly asked if Gibbs had mentioned the 500, almost before he was seated for the post-race winner’s press conference.

The dress rehearsal is over. Next Sunday, the curtain goes up for real.

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