Whitt slowed by the big one, scores 34th-place finish in Daytona

Cole Whitt and the No. 26 Al’s Liner / Scorpion Window Film Toyota Camry team finished 34th at Daytona International Speedway on Sunday afternoon.  Rain showers plagued the 2.5-mile superspeedway throughout the weekend to limit practice, abbreviate qualifying, and bring an early end to the scheduled 400-mile race.  Despite the limited track time to prepare for the event, Whitt raced inside the top 25 throughout most of the afternoon before being caught in a 26-car pile up on lap 98. 

 

Rain showers on Friday afternoon abbreviated qualifying to just one 25-minute session, and as a result Whitt rolled off 17th as the highest-qualifying rookie.  Early in the race, Whitt reported that his car handled well, but appeared to work better on the topside of the racetrack than the bottom.  Dropping back to the 33rd position by lap 20, Whitt was working a strategy to ride around for a few laps while the competition settled in.  Whitt moved back inside the top-20 by lap 60, and was running in the 24th position on the lap 97 restart.  Just one lap later, Whitt was in the midst of tight competition as ‘the big one’ broke out and collected over half the field.  With nowhere to go, Whitt sustained major damage to the front end of the No. 26 Al’s Liner / Scorpion Window Film Toyota Camry.  The damage proved to be too severe to continue and forced Whitt to retire from the event just laps before the skies opened and rain once again soaked the 2.5-mile speedway.  With the race called nearly 50 laps before the scheduled distance, Whitt was scored with a 34th-place finish. 

 

“You just never know what’s going to happen at Daytona International Speedway,” commented Whitt.  “We had a strong car with our Al’s Liner / Scorpion Window Film Toyota Camry; we were just waiting for the right time to make our move.  We were able to avoid the first ‘big one,’ but when that 26-car pileup broke out, there just wasn’t anywhere we could go.  It’s somewhat normal to see big pileups at Daytona and Talladega, but that one took out over half the field.  We got in Kyle Busch there near the end of the wreck and accidentally got him turned over on his roof, so I’m really glad he was okay.  It’s a shame that so many teams went home with torn up race cars, but it’s just a product of the racing here at Daytona International Speedway–it’s part of the reason that fans come to watch and that people tune in on television.  I’m really grateful for all that hard work that my BK Racing team put into preparing our car and hate that we’re taking it home so badly damaged.  Despite the wreck, I still think we had a solid weekend and learned a lot that will help us at Talladega [Ala.] Superspeedway in the fall.”

 

BK Racing PR