After lengthy rain delays and a freak fuel fire accident, Matt Kenseth emerged as the Daytona 500 champion Monday, holding off Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the final lap to win an incident-packed race under floodlights. Kenseth, in a Ford, was helped by his Roush Fenway teammate Greg Biffle, who delayed Earnhardt's charge in the NASCAR season opener before he was eventually passed and crossed the line in third place. The victory was Kenseth's second in the race following his 2009 triumph and was the sixth time in the last eight years that the 500 has ended with a green-white-checker finish that added two extra laps. After several cars crashed on the 188th lap, damaging the vehicles of pre-race favorites Carl Edwards and Tony Stewart, Kenseth grabbed a firm grip on the race. Earnhardt, the 2004 Daytona winner, made a real push to forge ahead on the final lap but could not find the space to get past Kenseth, who had struggled in the early stages of the race. “We had a lot of problems and almost ended up a lap down. The guys did a great job though, they never panicked and I think they enjoyed the day more because they couldn't hear me on the radio with my radio problems,” Kenseth added. The race was postponed from Sunday due to rain and then for a further seven hours Monday and finished at almost 1 A.M. local time. It was the first time NASCAR's premier event was run at night and not on a Sunday afternoon. A spectacular fire also delayed proceedings when Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya hit a jet-dryer truck, carrying a fuel tank, causing a large explosion and resulting in a two-hour, five minute delay while the course was cleared for the final 40 laps. The race began in chaotic fashion with a mass collision on just the second lap which ended the hopes of some of the biggest names on the circuit. Five-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson and debutant Danica Patrick were involved in the five-car incident. The accident happened when Elliott Sadler pushed into the back of Johnson, who spun around with chaotic results in the tightly-packed field. Patrick, just the third woman to compete in the ‘Great American Race', was caught in the backwash. She returned to the garage to repair the damage after her third crash of the week and rejoined on lap 66 to go through the formality of finishing the race. Johnson, who won the 500 in 2006, was unable to get back on the track and was reduced to the role of a frustrated spectator. Last year's winner Trevor Bayne, Kurt Busch and David Ragan also went off the track.
