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Can Trevor Bayne repeat his Daytona 500 win? Well, it’s a long shot

A World Of Bayne: Repeat A Statistical Long shot
Trevor Bayne hopes to repeat as Daytona 500 champion, a feat that hasn’t been accomplished in nearly two decades. In fact, only three drivers, Richard Petty (1973-74), Cale Yarborough (1983-84) and Sterling Marlin (1994-95) have won back-to-back Daytona 500s.

Bayne, like Marlin, is a Tennessee native. He is the youngest Daytona 500 winner, last year’s victory coming a day after his 20th birthday. Bayne turned 21 on Feb. 19.

A win would extend 2012 NASCAR Hall of Famer Glen Wood’s win record at Daytona to 16, giving him five more than Petty Enterprises and six ahead of Rick Hendrick. They are the only owners with double-digit victories at the track.

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Top 10 Stories of 2011 – #1 Tony Stewart’s Homestead-Miami Clincher

1-Tony Stewart’s Homestead-Miami Clincher
Stewart trailed Carl Edwards by three points entering the 10th and final race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup™. Both drivers had predicted the championship wouldn’t be decided until the final lap, and they were right. Edwards, who started on the pole, led the most laps while Stewart yo-yoed through the field after fixing damage to the front of his Chevrolet. Amazingly, Stewart took the lead with 36 laps remaining. Edwards, in second place, stayed in full-out pursuit mode until the checkered flag waved, but finished 1.306 seconds behind Stewart. Both drivers scored 2,403 points with the tiebreaker – five wins to one – falling in Stewart’s favor.

Top 10 Stories of 2011 – #2 Trevor Bayne’s Daytona 500 Win

2-Trevor Bayne’s Daytona 500 Win
Winning The Great American Race is a career achievement no matter how many races or championships are won elsewhere. Example: Seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt needed 20 starts to win his Daytona 500 at age 46. All of which made Bayne’s victory both surprising and historic. Bayne, at age 20 years and one day, was making just his second NASCAR Sprint Cup start, although his team – the legendary Wood Brothers – had won the Daytona 500 on four previous occasions. Bayne, who started 32nd and led only the final six laps as a record 74 lead changes were recorded became the youngest Daytona 500 winner and just the seventh to make the race his first NASCAR Sprint Cup victory. The win was Ford’s 600th and 98th for the Wood Brothers.

Top 10 Stories of 2011 – #8 Austin Dillon Becomes Youngest NASCAR Camping World Truck Champion

8-Austin Dillon Becomes Youngest NASCAR Camping World Truck Champion
Though a number of young drivers have used their experience in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series as a springboard to NASCAR Sprint Cup success – think Carl Edwards, among others – veteran drivers, for the most part, have had a stranglehold on its championships. Only Travis Kvapil (age 27 in 2003) was younger than 30 in the series’ first 16 seasons.

All that changed in 2011 as third-generation driver Austin Dillon, 21, became the youngest to win an NCWTS title. Dillon, a two-time winner, finished six points ahead of NASCAR national series veteran Johnny Sauter. Dillon, Richard

Childress’ grandson, returned a title to RCR that Mike Skinner won in the series’ 1995 inaugural season.

Top 10 Stories of 2011 – #9 Danica Patrick’s 4th place at Las Vegas

9-Danica Patrick Posts Best Finish in NASCAR by a Female Driver
All agreed that Danica Patrick’s part-time NASCAR career was on the upswing in its second season. Patrick proved that with an exclamation point on March 5 with a solid, fourth-place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The performance was record-setting: Patrick became not only the highest-finishing female driver in a NASCAR Nationwide Series race but also in any NASCAR national series event. Patrick’s feat broke a record from NASCAR’s earliest years – Sara Christian’s fifth-place finish in a NASCAR Sprint Cup (then Strictly Stock) race on Oct. 2, 1949 at Heidelberg, Pa.

Note: The Top 10 Stories of the 2011 NASCAR racing season as voted on by the media, including The Final Lap’s own Kerry Murphey

Top 10 Stories of 2011 – #10 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

10-2010 Sunoco Rookies-of-the-Year Win Championship

Two NASCAR national series champions gave media and fans yet another reason to keep an eye on the newcomers. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., whose uneven performance nearly cost him his job with Roush Fenway Racing in 2010, recovered to claim NASCAR Nationwide Series Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors. Roush’s faith was rewarded as Stenhouse won twice en route to the 2011 championship. Austin Dillon’s rookie of the year run in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series wasn’t quite so dramatic but like Stenhouse, he “graduated” to the champion’s chair. The season marked the first time that both Nationwide and truck rookies became champions in their sophomore years.

Note: The Top 10 Stories of the 2011 NASCAR racing season as voted on by the media, including The Final Lap’s own Kerry Murphey

Photos: Champion’s Week Las Vegas, Newlywed Game Fremont Street

Stewart, Teammate Ryan Newman, Winners of Humorous Newlywed Game Parody

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Nov. 30, 2011) — Tony Stewart’s on a roll. And that’s a good feeling when you’re in Las Vegas.

Stewart and Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Ryan Newman won Wednesday’s “This Ain’t the Newlywed Game,” a riff on the television original hosted by Bob Eubanks. Stewart and Newman edged the team of Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch by most accurately recalling the estimated attendance of March’s Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The game had a myriad of humorous moments – some broad, others ribald – and in some cases more resembled a roast of the top 12 finishers in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup™.

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