That’s how 2005 started. You came to Daytona and came out swinging. The Budweiser Shootout, the Gatorade Duel, the heroic run in the Busch Series race to get your first win in a full-length Daytona race? All yours.
It seemed like everything set up well for the 500. And you were there in the running on the final restart.
Then you got freight trained, dumped from the front in the last few laps and left to finish seventh in a race that should have been yours to win.
You rammed Jimmie Johnson post-race in Turn 1, and I knew immediately that I was just as disappointed as you were. I got tons of flack from school friends who had seen the race. It hurt. I knew you were hurting too.
That day seemed to set the tone for the whole beginning of the season. You made it to Michigan that year and hadn’t done anything.
And then Zippy told you the story about the dog and its ears. Told you to “leave the ears on the dog.” Something in that sparked you, and away you went!
Sonoma was the breakthrough! No shocker, given how good you were at road courses already, but it was nothing compared to what was about to come.
Daytona: all of a sudden, you were back where you should have won some four months prior. I was in Cherokee that weekend with the family. We had been to a program telling the story of their tribe, their nation.
It was good, but part of me was worried about how you were doing in the race! Of course, I had no idea about the rain that had hit Florida that evening, and that I hadn’t actually missed any of the race.
So I was quite happy to watch you lead for forever when we got back to the hotel after the show. Unfortunately, I fell asleep before the finish! I was still a bit too young and too tired to hang around until 2 in the morning.
How sad in retrospect, because you put on a show at the World Center of Racing like no other: 151 of 160 laps led en route to your first NEXTEL Cup points victory there. It was a never-say-die performance straight out of that song Paul Revere and the Raiders sang about the Cherokees!
That’s where the fence climb started too. I’ve seen the shot of you on top of the flagstand a million times since. I’ll never forget that.
I’ll confess that I didn’t watch the New Hampshire win that followed, but that was because I was at Summer Camp! But I did go to the administration office to check the results the next day on the only computer on the property. I did do a little fist pump in front of the computer screen though!
And then we got to Indianapolis.
I want to say that I had some idea of how much that race meant to you, but I definitely didn’t. I don’t think I ever will, since I’m a native North Carolinian and not a native Hoosier like yourself.
That’s not to say that Aug. 7, 2005 isn’t one of those days where I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing though. Because it is.
