Restart riles Gibbs

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Those double-file restarts designed to spice up NASCAR racing sure didn’t sit too well with Joe Gibbs on Saturday night.

Points leader Tony Stewart used the double-file restarts to split up Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch late in the race, and it was a big reason the two-time series champion won the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

“For us, it was a problem because the way we were staggered,” Gibbs said. “We couldn’t get our two cars the way we’d like to get them. We had them for a while there, then that caution came up and it kept catching us where we could not really get lined up where we wanted to down the stretch there.”

Had Hamlin and Busch been able to get lined up together, they almost certainly would have chased down Stewart. Hamlin did manage to push Busch to the front following the final restart with four laps remaining, but it didn’t last. Hamlin dropped back, then Stewart and Jimmie Johnson teamed up to get a run on Busch.

Busch tried to block Stewart, but ended up wrecking violently a few hundred yards from the finish line.

NASCAR implemented double-file restarts last month, lining the field up side by side as it is at the beginning of races and giving the leader the option of starting on the inside lane or the outside.

Martin’s misery

Mark Martin has never enjoyed Daytona International Speedway, not even when he nearly won the 2008 Daytona 500.

Martin, who despises restrictor-plate racing that keeps cars bunched together and often leads to big wrecks, now has more reason to hate the famed track. Martin was involved in the first accident of the Coke Zero 400. Former Roush Racing teammate Matt Kenseth tapped the rear off Martin’s car coming off turn two on lap 13 and sent the 50-year-old driver spinning across the track.

“I just pinched him,” said Martin, who finished 38th. “It’s my fault.”

He was taken to the infield care center, treated and released.

Get in the back

Three drivers had to start at the back of the pack.

Greg Biffle and Sam Hornish Jr. went to the rear of the field because they switched to backup cars following an accident during practice Thursday. David Reutimann joined them back there because his team swapped engines following practice.