DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. --- NASCAR might have achieved its goal to create better racing during Sunday's Daytona 500 by letting drivers be as aggressive as they wanted and by increasing speeds.
While many will remember Jamie McMurray's dramatic victory in the second overtime, the race forever will be remembered for a pothole.
If Daytona International Speedway and NASCAR are right, a pair of delays totaling 2 hours, 25 minutes in stock car's Super Bowl will wind up being little more than an amusing footnote to the most-competitive 500 of all time.
The drivers who had to negotiate through the growing sinkhole clearly sided with the track and sanctioning body. They joked about the hole during the delays, applauded the efforts to fix it and were more concerned about the level of competition -- before and after the delays.
Race fans apparently agreed, too. While a few thousand fans left the track early, the overwhelming majority of the 175,000 people stayed. And so did the television audience.
Ratings for the race improved by 14 percent compared to last year's event. According to Nielsen Media Research, nearly 30 million people watched the race, a dramatic bump from the 26.2 million who watched a year ago.
Those who stuck it out were rewarded with one of the best finishes -- and emotional celebrations -- in the race's 52-year history.
For the immediate future, people will talk about a pothole. The lasting effect, the sport hopes, will be the racing.
"Well, I thought that NASCAR and the track did a really good job trying to get it fixed," McMurray said after holding off Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the eighth lap of overtime. "I mean, the people, I don't think the Daytona 500 should ever end early. Obviously when it rains and there's exceptions to this, but I thought that they did a really good job.
"I was asking numerous times, 'What are they doing to fix it, what is the problem? There were some issues over there. I thought they did a really good job of getting it fixed. Once they figured out a solution for it, we didn't sit out of the cars for quite so long. I thought they did a really good job of getting it fixed."
McMurray was even more gracious about the new rules that created 52 lead changes among a race-record 21 drivers. McMurray was the 21st person to lead, and he waited until the final two laps to do it. Earnhardt was two car lengths behind, followed by 25 other cars that were within 30 yards of the winner.
"NASCAR has went out of their way with the rules package and everything they've done to make the fans happy," McMurray said. "That's what it's all about. That's what's built this sport. I think everything was fine there."
Earnhardt didn't blame the hole for stalling his late-race run. Neither did third-place Greg Biffle. In fact, none of the drivers said the pothole had an outcome on the finish.
"I don't think it changed the outcome at all," said Biffle, who believed the new rules and a more fan-friendly approach by NASCAR played a more important roll.
"I think that we felt like we could push and shove more; I think there was more of that today," he said. "You know, it's unfortunate that they're going to pave this racetrack because the grip level is about perfect. I mean, you know, the cars slide up the racetrack. You can't go around this thing wide open like you can Talladega (Ala.) and stay in line. You got to come off the gas a little bit, get back on the gas. It is rough from the bumps. It is tough on that.
"But I think the rule package is good. The cars race around here really good."
Earnhardt likes the 32 year-old pavement, but he'd like the speedway to smooth out some of the bumps. Those bumps, he said, probably caused the pothole as cars bounced through the turns.
"Track surfaces are going to have problems from time to time," Earnhardt said. "Like I said, I mean, this wasn't a fault of NASCAR. It wasn't a fault of Daytona's or nobody's. It was probably more or less everybody's cars beating on the racetrack with trailing arm mounts and tail pipes. That's going to knock a hole in some asphalt, I don't care where you're at.
"They'll patch it or whatever they'll do, and it won't have this problem again, I promise you that."
Reach Don Coble at don.coble.@morris.com.
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