Johnson charges, puts 2012 in rearview mirror

Jimmie Johnson celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the Daytona 500 on Sunday afternoon in Daytona Beach, Fla. It was the second Daytona 500 victory for Johnson, a five-time NASCAR champion who first won the race in 2006.

Jimmie Johnson celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the Daytona 500 on Sunday afternoon in Daytona Beach, Fla. It was the second Daytona 500 victory for Johnson, a five-time NASCAR champion who first won the race in 2006.

Monday, February 25, 2013

— A big first for Danica Patrick, but an even bigger second came Sunday for Jimmie Johnson.

Patrick made history up front at the Daytona 500, only to see Johnson make a late push ahead of her and reclaim his spot at the top of NASCAR.

It was the second Daytona 500 victory for Johnson, a five-time NASCAR champion who first won The Great American Race in 2006.

“There is no other way to start the season than to win the Daytona 500. I’m a very lucky man to have won it twice,” said Johnson, who won in his 400th career start. “I’m very honored to be on that trophy with all the greats that have ever been in our sport.”

It comes a year after Johnson completed only one lap in the race because of a wreck that also collected Patrick, and just three months after Johnson lost his bid for a sixth Sprint Cup title. “I don’t think we went anywhere; anybody in the garage area, they’re wise to all that,” Johnson said. “Definitely a great start for the team. When we were sitting discussing things before the season started, we felt good about the 500, but we’re really excited for everything after the 500. I think it’s going to be a very strong year for us.”

Patrick is hoping for her own success after a history making week.

The first woman to win the pole, Patrick also became the first woman to lead the race. She ran inside the top 10 most of the race, kept pace with the field and never panicked on the track.

Her only mistakes were on pit road, where she got beat on the race back to the track, and on the final lap, when she was running third but got snookered by the veterans and faded to eighth.

“I would imagine pretty much anyone would be kicking themselves about what they coulda, shoulda have done to give themselves an opportunity to win,” she said. “I think that’s what I was feeling today, was uncertainty as to how I was going to accomplish that.”

There were several multi-car crashes, but no one was hurt and none of them approached the magnitude of the wreck that injured more than two dozen fans in the grandstand at the end of the Nationwide Series race on the same track a day earlier. Daytona International Speedway workers were up until 1 a.m. Central repairing the fence that was damaged in the accident, and track officials offered Sunday morning to move any fans who felt uneasy sitting too close to the track.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., whose father was killed in this race 12 years ago, was involved in Saturday’s accident but refocused and finished second to Johnson, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate.

“Me personally, I was just really waiting to get the news on how everybody was, how all the fans were overnight, just hoping that things were going to improve,” Earnhardt said, adding that he “wasn’t really ready to proceed until you had some confirmation that things were looking more positive.”

The race itself, the debut for NASCAR’s new Gen-6 car, was quite similar to all the other Cup races during Speedweeks in that the cars seemed to line up in a single-file parade along the top groove of the track. It made the 55th running of the Daytona 500 relatively uneventful.

When the race was on the line, Johnson took off.

The driver known as “Five-Time” raced past defending NASCAR champion Brad Keselowski on the final restart and pulled out to a sizable lead that nobody challenged over the final six laps.

Johnson and Keselowski went down to the wire last season in their race for the Sprint Cup title, with Johnson faltering in the final two races as Keselowski won his first Cup championship.

“As far as racing with Brad out there, you really lose sight of who is in what car,” Johnson said. “It’s just somebody between you and the trophy. It could have been anybody.”

Once Johnson cleared Keselowski on the last restart he had a breakaway lead with Greg Biffle and Patrick behind him. But as the field closed in on the checkered flag, Earnhardt finally made his move, just too late and too far behind to get close enough to the lead.

Earnhardt wound up second for the third time in the last four years. But with all the crashes the Hendrick cars have endured in restrictor plate races - teammate Kasey Kahne was in the first accident Sunday - team owner Rick Hendrick was just fine with the finish.

Mark Martin (Batesvillle) was third in a Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota. Keselowski, who overcame two accidents earlier in the race, wound up fourth in Penske Racing’s new Ford. Ryan Newman was fifth in a Chevy for Stewart-Haas Racing.

Patrick was clearly disappointed with her finish. When the race was on the line, she was schooled by Earnhardt, who made his last move and blocked any chance she had.

Still, Patrick became the first woman in history to lead laps in the 500 when she passed Michael Waltrip on a restart on Lap 90. She stayed on the point for two laps, then was shuffled back to third. She ended up leading five laps, another groundbreaking moment for Patrick, who as a rookie in 2005 became the first woman to lead the Indianapolis 500 and now is the 13th driver to lead laps in both the Daytona 500 and the Indy 500.

Sports, Pages 13 on 02/25/2013