Crashes mar opening NASCAR Sprint Cup practices
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The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is back -- you can tell by the bent sheet metal.
In the opening practice Thursday for the Budweiser Shootout, several Cup drivers including Mark Martin, Denny Hamlin and Greg Biffle were involved in a crash on the high-banked, 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway.
The Shootout is a nonpoints exhibition sprint race Saturday night that precedes the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 14.
The crash occurred after NASCAR officials said they would ease the rules governing how much drivers can bump into the car ahead of them, so-called ‘bump drafting,’ this season at Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway, where the cars race in tight bunches. And Biffle blamed the wreck on ‘aggressive bump drafting.’
‘What are we, 20-30 minutes into practice? Trust me, we’re not finished,’ Biffle said.
He was right. In the second practice, Juan Pablo Montoya‘s Chevrolet hit the rear of Kurt Busch’s Dodge so hard that it sent Busch into the wall, stopping that practice as well as they sought repairs.
--Jim Peltz, reporting from Daytona Beach, Fla.