So Michael Self Said To Himself..........

So Michael Self said to himself, "Self.....go for the win at Daytona."   When it was all over, he did.   A native of Utah - home of Mitt Romney and the singing group SheDaisy - he'd won in the K&N/Winston West series eight times - six in Chevrolets fielded by Jim Offenbach in 2012-13; after a four-year layoff he returned to K&N Winston West and won twice in Bob Bruncati Fords in 2017.  

He has also raced in ARCA, winning on the zaniest restart ever seen at Kansas Speedway in 2016, driving the  MDM #28.    He switched to the Venturini squadron for 2017, but while the cars are different - he now races Venturini Toyotas - the winning is still the same. 

As the showdown swelled forward Daytona suddenly was racing like it was 1984.   Sheldon Creed is now wielding the powerful MDM #28, now like the Venturini fleet a Toyota, and sporting teammates Chase Purdy (in a #8 curiously resembling an old Dale Junior DEI Chevy) and #41 Zane Smith .   Creed, however, was crossing swords and the sidedraft with Sean Corr, driving the Empire Racing Group #43, an ARCA team with a Richard Petty connection.  

The #43 vs #28 showdown was swelling into an epic finish that got derailed by two wrecks, the first tearing asunder the day of Bret Holmes.    The subsequent one-lap restart wiped out the leaders and opened the door for Self.

When it was all over Venturini racecars had three of the top five finishes and four of the top eight.   Creed recovered from his mess to finish an astonishing third.    One of the finishing Venturini Toyotas was polesitter Natalie Decker, who stole the early headlines thusly.   Silly commentary praising Danica Patrick for "showing the way" followed, and the irony of that statement followed when Zane Smith stormed into the lead and Decker nearly T-boned some cars on two occasions on restarts - the incar camera footage here was genuinely unsettling.   The second set-to so tore up her left front fender that she was dead meat until the spate of late yellows rescued her and numerous others.  That she survived and finished so well is certainly noteworthy and in fact is moreso than anything Danica Patrick did.


The most striking aspect of the racing going forward is that Corr was stuck on the outside late - usually a dead lane as far as winning goes - but he produced something we haven't seen at Daytona or Talladega.  Most often sidedrafting has been stopping passing, but Corr at the finish was able to rocket from third to a momentary lead in substantial part by sidedrafting reminiscent of Terry Labonte's 1999 BGN win at Talladega.    NASCAR made a gear change before opening practice that promised to allow the cars to suck up in the draft more effectively.   

That Corr and Creed's race to to the stripe was not declared the finish in this ARCA race showed anew the folly of not racing to the line for the finish of races when it is safe to do so.   By instead rewinding and staging another green-white finish the race was torn asunder with more crashes.   It thus put a damper on what was a worthwhile winner in Michael Self, and it was also an encouraging start to Speedweeks 2018.