Daytona 500 halted for track repairs two hours into the NASCAR season opener

  Crews repairing broken asphalt at Daytona International Speedway during a 90-minute-plus red flag during Daytona 500 (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.
   NASCAR has red-flagged the Daytona 500 for more than an hour now (beginning at 3:22 p.m. ET) to repair a hole in the asphalt between turns one and two.
   The hole is about three feet long and a foot or so wide.
   Typically patchwork like this shouldn't be much of an issue, with all the quick-drying concretes available. NASCAR has faced issues like this at Bristol and Martinsville, with little issue.
   But NASCAR CEO Brian France said the temperature (about 53 degrees trackside) was causing problems.
   "Because of the cold temperatures the normal solutions you would use to patch the track aren't working," France said.
   "But we're on our third different solution and we are turning the corner.
   "Normally we would have had this resolved a lot quicker.
   "The good news is we will get it resolved. And we're in the midst of probably our best Daytona 500 in a long time."
    The race, which started at 1:20 p.m., hadn't really taken a 'set' when the problem with the asphalt occurred, 78 laps from the end of the 200-lapper at the 2.5-mile track. A number of drivers had led, but some minor, an unexplained tire problems had bothered some drivers.
   One of those was Jimmie Johnson, who had just cut a right-front tire when the issue became so clear, with the hole suddenly visible.
   Rain Friday was a possible factor.
   However this track, which opened in 1959, was last repaved in October 1978 – when Dale Earnhardt Jr., to put it some perspective, was barely four years old.
   The Talladega track, similar in design, was repaved in 2006, at a cost of about $15 million, over some five months.
   The price tag for repaving Daytona International Speedway was pegged last year at $20 million plus.
   However there are complications here, including the upcoming Bike Week racing here, two weeks from now.
   And could this track be repaved in time for the July 3rd Sprint Cup 400 here? Plus, teams and Goodyear engineers would certainly want to test here before such a race after any major repaving. Since a track has to set at least two weeks after paving before cars can run on it, that narrows the repaving window even more. Plus, this is Florida, with its weather issues.
    

  
  

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