Blaney's late misfortune spells 'oh no, not again'

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- For some people, Speedweeks at Daytona shouldn't be allowed to happen like this.

For people like the staff of Bill Davis Racing, who wrestled mightily -- and I might add, successfully -- with NASCAR's top 35 rule all of last season, there should be a lifetime "hall pass" that prevents them from ever having to experience it again.

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They've spent their time in that dark place punctuated by lightning bolts and fireballs, where the man in charge (sorry, Brian) has the chair marked "35th" attached to a rope with which he tugs the seat a few more feet away each time the damned get within agonized inches of parking their butts in it.

BD and his boys, mostly driver Dave Blaney and crew chief Tommy Baldwin and the men and women of the No. 22 Toyota team, did great work last season to escape the abyss of "36th and beyond" in the Cup owner standings not once, but twice.

If that struggle can be called a character builder, they don't need any more -- they've got plenty after what they experienced last season.

But after Speedweeks' 11-day run -- from Media Day to the aftermath of the 50th Daytona 500 -- the faces around the 22 hauler as they prepared to load a mangled yellow-and-black Camry were a mix of disappointment, fear and "what do we got to do to break this string?"

It smacks of last season, when Blaney, wielding one of the new Toyotas, came out of the box running decent on the racetrack, but was afflicted with all manner of racing luck -- most of it bad -- from engines to accidents to an odd off-track miscue.

From the start of Speedweeks, Blaney showed the promise of better things that were not only coming -- but are very definitely here -- from the beginning of the preseason right up to the last 30 laps of the Daytona 500.

Neither Blaney nor Davis, his owner, said the car was very good early in the race, but when it was getting down to crunch time, Blaney -- as he had in his Gatorade Duel qualifier before he got shuffled every which way to Tuesday -- had a potential top-five car.

But while the racing certainly was variable through the 500 -- at least in terms of lead changes, of which there were a healthy 42 -- when it got down to Lap 175 it got downright intense.

And with less than 15 laps to go disaster, which Blaney became only too familiar with last year, struck him again. Blaney said he was confused about how he and Juan Montoya came together, but that he thought he had a right-front tire going down.

So it became no coincidence that when defending Daytona 500 winner Kevin Harvick drove into the back of Blaney entering Turn 3, scooting him up the track and into the wall and out of the race, he reportedly radioed his crew that he thought Blaney had a flat.

It didn't matter. After what they called a mediocre test at Las Vegas and California, what had been a golden opportunity for Davis' lead team became another "high 30s" finish. That puts them currently outside the top 35 and very definitely on pins and needles.

But at least Blaney and company got to compete through all of Speedweeks. They got to see the promise of all the hard work by Terry Elledge and his engine crew, and Baldwin and Slugger Labbe and all the engineers and mechanics.

Even if it was hard to draw optimism from that in the gloom and dark of Daytona's garage Sunday evening.

Eddie and Len Wood, owners of Wood Brothers Racing, a legendary team that's been mired outside the top 35 since the stretch run of the 2007 season, were spotted in a golf cart Sunday morning heading toward pit road.

And though they smiled and waved to a passerby they knew, their words spoke volumes of their hurt and despair and desperation of being on NASCAR's "outs."

So on to California, where hope will spring again.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.