2007 Pepsi 400

The 2007 Pepsi 400 was the 18th race of the 2007 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series season and held on July 7, 2007, at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.

It was the final race at Daytona named the Pepsi 400; beginning in 2008, the race will be sponsored by the Coca-Cola Coke Zero brand as the Coke Zero 400.

Qualifying

Boris Said was on the pole with 14 cars left to qualify until a rainstorm stopped qualifying. Eventually, it was cancelled outright, sending the drivers of three of the six fastest cars at the time home. The others were Jeremy Mayfield and Michael Waltrip.

All times that were recorded were eliminated, and the starting lineup was set according to the NASCAR rule book. The pole sitter was Jeff Gordon, and Denny Hamlin sat on the outside. Ironically, this was the reverse of the previous week's finishing running order.

It was the first time in the speedway's history that a qualifying session was not completed, covering a total of 97 races. As a result of what happened, on January 21, 2008, NASCAR changed the rules that put those not in the Top 35 Owners' Points into a separate session in order to make the race, also called "The Boris Said Rule".

Race

Jamie McMurray defeated Kyle Busch to win the Pepsi 400 and claim his second victory and end a 166-race winless streak that had spanned since 2002 when he won in only his second start while subbing for Sterling Marlin. The final margin of victory was .005 seconds, tied for the second-closest margin in NASCAR history since electronic scoring and timing was adopted in 1993. The rest of the top five consisted of Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, and Jeff Gordon.

As at the Daytona 500, some of the sport's biggest stars struggled. Kevin Harvick finished 34th, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. 36th, Tony Stewart 38th, and Denny Hamlin 43rd. Despite the fact there were many incidents throughout the race, most were relatively minor and "the Big One" never happened.

Top ten results:

Notes

*Kyle Busch missed, by the slimmest of margins, being the first driver to win a Busch Series and a NEXTEL Cup Series race on the same day. That morning, he had won the Winn-Dixie 250, postponed from Friday night because of rain.
*TNT presented the telecast in a "Wide Open" format, in which full-screen commercial breaks were replaced by ads and short films that showed on one corner of the screen. The running order of the cars was always available on the broadcast, and it was complemented by enhanced statistics and updates.
*For the first time since 1965, no one from the Petty family was in the starting lineup for a race at Daytona. Kyle Petty was instead a broadcaster for TNT, and John Andretti took his place in the starting lineup.
*This was the last race which combined the older-design cars with restrictor plates. The next such race, the 2007 UAW-Ford 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, used the Car of Tomorrow, as will all races in 2008.
*Two days after this race, International Speedway Corporation, which owns DIS, signed a multi-year deal with Coca-Cola to sell beverages at all its tracks. [http://www.jayski.com/pages/tracks.htm] That meant that this race would be renamed the Coke Zero 400 as of 2008.

External links

* [http://www.jayski.com/stats/2007/results/18dis2007results.htm Complete race results]
* [http://www.jayski.com/stats/2007/standings/18dis2007points.htm Points standings]
* [http://jayski.com/next/2007/practices/2007dis2-prac.htm|Practice speeds]
* [http://jayski.com/stats/2007/grids/2007dis2-grid.htm|Qualifying results]