Danica Patrick Hits The Wall Hard

Cedar's favorite 100 pounds of on trouble smacks the infield wall hard on the last lap of Thursday's qualifying race. She would go on to win the pole for Saturday's Nationwide race only to crash again and then going down better than 40 laps before finishing 38th. Patrick will try again today, this time making her Sprint Cup debut at the Daytona 500.

For all the negative snarky remarks, kitchen jokes and junior varsity locker room comments this girl still owns herself. Yes, the GoDaddy.com commercials are tiresome and yes she's got a really foul mouth and bad temper. But watch her hit the wall at Daytona, and then step out of a destroyed race car completely unshaken, and tell me you could do the same.

Just saying.....

Cedar Posts Bonus: ESPN David Newton's non-stop Danica Bashing from February 2010 is here and Newton's new Danica view two years later is here. Yes he's seen the light.

Post Speed Street ALL HELL BREAKS OUT!

Charlotte police officers had their hands full early this morning as dozens of African American thugs described as "several groups of people" by CMPD, confronted each other on the streets of "Uptown" Charlotte shortly after the Speed Street event had closed for the evening. The violence continued off and on for over two hours and ended in a homicide.

Nearly an hour after the official end of Speed Street events and long after most NASCAR fans had gone home, the groups began fighting during what some have described as "near riot" conditions in the post Speed Street hours.

According to CMPD the groups where not partaking in the Speed Street events but apparently came uptown to create general mayhem. The groups were seen roaming the area that included the Speed Street venue and the transit center.

"Officers noted people flashing gang signs, challenging other people as well as police officers, attempting to block sidewalks, and impeding vehicle traffic."

The mayhem reached a dramatic crescendo when CMPD officers heard several gunshots, and responded to the 200 block of 3rd Street to discover one person dead and another shot.

According to the CMPD press release, two groups became involved in one of many continuing altercations when a someone in the group pulled a handgun and fired at random, striking a man once in the head. He died at the scene.

The mob moved further down Collage street where a second person was shot in the lower leg. He was later transported in handcuffs to Carolinas Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries.

CMPD helicopter and K-9 units were called in but were unable to locate the shooting suspect.

The Speed Street event has been staffed with officers from CMPD's Central Division as well as paid off duty CMPD officers. As the conditions deteriorated additional CMPD resources, including CMPD's Civil Energency Unit aka riot police were called in to control the gangs.

A department email released at 3:18 this morning stated that "Approximately 70 arrests were made, including nearly 15 juvenile arrests. The majority of the arrests were made for disorderly conduct, fighting, assault and impeding traffic.

Cedar Posts Update: 11:00 AM After staying quiet most of the morning the "Local Paper" has now weighed in as have WBT and WSOC.

If you think Uptown is the place you want to be after dark this video might change your mind. The video is here. I'm not sure of the source but it appears to be from a CMPD camera taken with a cell phone video camera.

Note: The video linked above is not from last night's madness but from April. Though I expect the idea is much the same.

Cedar Posts Update: 4:23 PM CMPD has identified the deceased victim as Antwan Terrell Smith DOB 8/23/1988. Smith had priors for sexual assault, ADW, resiting arrest, assault on a female. He was last arrested in June of last year.


Antwan Terrell Smith

The second shooting victim has been identified at Durante Kavon James DOB 03/16/1989. James has a long arrest record dating back to at least 2008. Crimes included armed robbery, drug charges, trespassing, resisting a public officer. James is expected to recover from his injuries. No word on pending charges.


Durante Kavon James

Wrap Up of the Daytona Pot Hole 500

The best part of this February Sunday is Daytona. I can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than watching the 500 on the really big flat screen. Add in NASCAR.com and twitter.com plus surround sound and a dozen friends and it is almost live and in person.

Since I'm more club suites than grandstand I'm don't miss the lack of noise nor the chicken bones and Budweiser cans. But I do miss the roar of the crowd.

Below: Daytona from 1956. Three years later the 500 was born.




What will become known as the Pot Hole 500, Sunday's Daytona was full of unexpected surprises. The out of nowhere win by Jamie McMurray after two red flags on perfect weather afternoon and the middle of the pack run by Dale Jr to finish second, will not be over shadowed by the pot holes that put the race on hold twice.

Tim McGraw waiting for his pre race performance.


Photo Marty Smith ESPN Via Twitter

Tim McGraw sings for a full house at Daytona.


Photo Marty Smith ESPN Via Twitter

Below: No that's not Danica it is team mate Mark Martin.


Photo Marty Smith ESPN Via Twitter

This was Martin's 25 Daytona 500, a race he has never won. With a pole and the lead for the first five laps Martin looked good even though he would slip back to 12th at the 1/2 way mark and finish there.

Jimmie Johnson's Lowes number 48.


Photo Marty Smith ESPN Via Twitter

Jimmie's car would take a beating again and again and finally head to the garage six hours later with only four laps remaining.

Best tweet so far: NicoleMBriscoe RT @paultracy3: Is it me or has hoenash been involved in both yellows, I will say it again , he is a retard--what's PT doing these days?

Good to see the 43 car out in front for a while and the crowd actually cheered Jeff Gordon when he took the lead at the half way mark.

Best Radio Traffic JR on the red flag delay and the road crew fixing pot holes on the track "I know how they are going to fix the track they're just going to put a cone over it and we'll have to dodge it.

Second best: DW says hello to JR "Jr, you have the fastest car on track down the back straightaway into T-3." JR: "Are u serious? I'm 21st"





And after nearly 7 hours and 2 Red Flags 52 lead changes 21 Leaders Jamie McMurray wins with JR closing in on him fast.

OK for this you had to been there, the last two laps in shoot out format, with Dale, JR coming up the middle taking second only because he ran out of track. The crowd was insane!




In the end in was McMurray. Jamie McMurray was so emotional that he broke down twice after winning, and really no one blames him. He has been on the same economic roll coaster so many of us have endured this last year.

Final Tweet:

RyanMcGeeESPN Impossible not to be happy for #Daytona 500 champ @JamieMcMurray. Great guy. Career was up on blocks. #NASCAR

Daytona Saturday Belongs to Tony Stewart

I had hoped to see JR win a race, and Danica make a top ten finish, I got neither.

Tony Stewart won the 300 mile race in the Oreo/Ritz car. The car was just awesome. This his 15th win at Daytona giving him the 3rd spot with most wins at Daytona right up there with Dale Earnhardt and Bobby Allison. But don't expect him to break the "Big E's" record of 34 Daytona wins anytime soon.


Photo Thanks to Marty Smith ESPN via tweeter

Dale Junior was running strong all day then on lap 35 he got hooked and the 88 car just bent over and flopped on to its roof.


Fox News Screen Grab Thanks to ShortBus.

JR would later say: "It's good to go on your roof every now and then. Reminds you how safe the cars are, and you are apt to drive them harder next time".

Then he added: "You don't want to go upside down without it being spectacular. Don't want to waste your opportunity.

On a serious note he point out that two days and two wrecks will cost him nearly 650,000 which may mean he'll run more of the Nationwide Series race to help JR Motorsports out financially. JR Motorsports has been short on sponsorship dollars this year but they have committed to run a full season.

Well it was spectacular, you see this crash again and again this weekend. Let's home he can stay out of trouble tomorrow.

JR's spectacular crash can just minutes after a 12 car melee that took out Danica Patrick.

Patrick discusses how the dynamics of the wrecks differed. "This is some very difficult racing. It really is."

It should be noted Patrick didn't cause the mess in fact her crew had just adjusted the car and it was "really running great".

The Daytona 500 starts at 1PM tomorrow.