Daytona Beach, Fla. – NASCAR's opening day had all the making of a spectacular coming out party with a record number of lead changes until the asphalt begin breaking up on the seam between Turns 1 and 2 on Lap 122.
Kurt Busch radioed to his crew that a hole approximately eight by six inches existed on the track.
NASCAR chairman and CEO Brian France quickly addressed the problem.
"We really discovered that we now have a set of circumstances that would have taken longer that this to fix," France said. "We are having a great Daytona 500 and we are going to have a great Daytona 500. But we put three different solutions that we had in place and it wasn't until the third one that it appears that it will now get it remedied. That's just disappointing for our fans and for ourselves. That's where we are."
Clint Bowyer was leading when the race was red-flagged for 1 hour, 41 minutes.
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