Reed Sorenson, Casey Mears and Todd Bodine narrowly miss out on the Daytona 500
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Casey Mears was in perfect position to make the Daytona 500. Or so he thought.
With two laps remaining in his Gatorade Duel race on Thursday, Mears was driving in one of the two transfer spots before Paul Menard got loose and other cars bottlenecked in front of Mears, who then lost the momentum and the draft.
And there went his hopes to make the Daytona 500.
“It is what it is – I really don’t know how to describe it,” Mears said. “It’s frustrating. … When you come here, you know the fact is you have to qualify in and you’ve got to race in.
“The way it went down, it was frustrating because we were in comfortably it looked like.”
Mears had hoped to get the Keyed-Up Motorsports car in the field after seeing his Richard Childress Racing ride dissolve because of sponsorship issues.
“If we would have been a little bit better, we wouldn’t have been in that position to begin with,” Mears said. “We needed the car to turn a little bit better.”
Daytona 500 qualifying is different than any other race. The top 35 in owner points from 2009 are locked in. Then the top two finishers not in the top 35 from each of the 150-mile qualifying races Thursday get spots in the 500 field. The next three spots go to the drivers not yet in the field who had the fastest speeds in time trials last Saturday. The last spot goes to a past champion, and if there’s no past champion, then another driver gets in on speed.
Mears finished third in his race among the drivers not in the top 35 in owner points and just missed the cut. Kirk Shelmerdine Racing’s Todd Bodine suffered the same fate in the first qualifying race. Braun Racing’s Reed Sorenson was the quickest driver in time trials not to make the field.
Those three came so close, but won’t be running on Sunday.
“We gave it a great shot,” said Bodine, who replaced team owner Kirk Shelmerdine in the car and nearly put it in the Daytona 500. “It just got really tight off [the turns] at the end. … It’s disappointing. Kirk’s a great guy.”
At times during his qualifying race, Sorenson was in one of the two transfer spots.
“We knew it would be a tough challenge coming in,” said Sorenson, whose next Cup attempt will be at Atlanta. “We learned a lot about the team and the car. … We’ll just look to the future.”
In addition to Mears, Sorenson and Bodine, the other drivers who failed to make the Daytona 500 field were BAM Racing’s David Gilliland, Nemco Motorsports’ Jeff Fuller, Phoenix Racing’s Aric Almirola, Whitney Motorsports’ Terry Cook, Prism Motorsports’ Dave Blaney, Stratus Racing Group’s Derrike Cope, K Automotive Motorsports’ Mike Wallace and Norm Benning Racing’s Norm Benning.
