2007 Pepsi 400

2007 Pepsi 400

Race details
Race 18 of 36 in the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series season
Track map of Daytona International Speedway showing mainly the speedway.
Date	July 7, 2007 (2007-July-07)
Official name	Pepsi 400
Location	Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Course	Permanent racing facility 2.5 mi (4 km)
Distance	160 laps, 400 mi (643.737 km)
Weather	Temperatures reaching up to 93.9 °F (34.4 °C); wind speeds approaching 13.0 miles per hour (20.9 km/h)[1]
Average speed	138.983 miles per hour (223.671 km/h)
Pole position
Driver	Jeff Gordon	Hendrick Motorsports
Time	2007 Owner's Points
Most laps led
Driver	Clint Bowyer	Richard Childress Racing
Laps	55
Winner
No. 26	Jamie McMurray	Roush Fenway Racing
Television in the United States
Network	Turner Network Television
Announcers	Bill Weber, Wally Dallenbach, Jr. and Kyle Petty

The 2007 Pepsi 400 was the 18th race of the 2007 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series season and held on July 7, 2007, at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.

It was the final race at Daytona named the Pepsi 400; beginning in 2008, the race was sponsored by Coca-Cola's Coke Zero brand as the Coke Zero 400.

Qualifying

Boris Said was on the pole with 14 cars left to qualify until a rainstorm stopped qualifying. Eventually, it was cancelled outright, sending home, among others, Said, Michael Waltrip, and Jeremy Mayfield who had each posted three of the six fastest attempts.

All times that were recorded were eliminated, and the starting lineup was set according to the NASCAR rule book. The pole sitter was Jeff Gordon, and Denny Hamlin sat on the outside. Ironically, this was the reverse of the previous week's finishing running order.

It was the first time in the speedway's history that a qualifying session was not completed, covering a total of 97 races. As a result of what happened, on January 21, 2008, NASCAR changed the rules that put those not in the Top 35 Owners' Points into a separate session in order to make the race, also called "The Boris Said Rule".

Race

Jamie McMurray and Kyle Busch created one of the most memorable finishes, running side-by-side for nearly 32 laps. McMurray defeated Busch to win the Pepsi 400 and claim his second victory and end a 166-race winless streak that had spanned since 2002, when he won in only his second start while subbing for Sterling Marlin. The final margin of victory was .005 seconds, tied for the second-closest margin in NASCAR history since electronic scoring and timing was adopted in 1993. The other Top 5 finishers were Kurt Busch in 3rd, Carl Edwards in 4th, and Jeff Gordon in 5th.

As at the Daytona 500, some of the sport's biggest stars struggled. Kevin Harvick finished 34th while Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Tony Stewart, and Denny Hamlin finished 36th, 38th, and 43rd respectively. Despite the fact there were many incidents throughout the race, most were relatively minor and the "Big One" never happened.

Clint Bowyer finished 7th, making his #07 car do so on 07-07-07. Kasey Kahne finished 9th in his #9 Evernham Motorsports Dodge.

Top 10 results

Notes

• Kyle Busch missed, by the slimmest of margins, being the first driver to win a Busch Series and a NEXTEL Cup Series race on the same day. That morning, he had won the Winn-Dixie 250, postponed from Friday night because of rain.
• For the first time since 1965, no one from the Petty family was in the starting lineup for a race at Daytona. Kyle Petty was instead a broadcaster for TNT, and John Andretti took his place in the starting lineup.
• This was the last race which combined the older-design cars with restrictor plates. The next such race, the 2007 UAW-Ford 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, used the Car of Tomorrow which then became standard in 2008.
• Two days after this race, International Speedway Corporation, which owns DIS, signed a multi-year deal with Coca-Cola to sell beverages at all its tracks. That meant that this race would be renamed the Coke Zero 400 as of 2008.
• Interesting side note: the race was held on July 7, 2007 (07/07/07) and Clint Bowyer drove the 07 car to a seventh-place finish that night.

References

External links

• Complete race results
• Points standings
• Practice speeds
• Qualifying results