DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – As Tyler Reddick and Elliott Sadler came off the Turn 4 on the final lap of the PowerShares QQQ 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway, reporters watching from the press box knew it was going to be close.
At the finish line, after side-to-side contact between the two Chevrolets, Reddick was less than three inches ahead, and the scoring monitor showed no time difference between the first- and second-place cars.
When NASCAR announced in the a winning margin of .000 seconds, closest in the sanctioning body’s history, Dale Earnhardt Jr. said, “That’s like a tie. Am I right? Either way, fine with me.”
Earnhardt’s JR Motorsports, of course, owns both cars.
But the race didn’t end in a tie. NASCAR timing and scoring doesn’t measure beyond thousandths of a second and couldn’t express the photo finish in numbers smaller than .000.
“Can I protest?” Sadler quipped.
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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