Let’s go racin’ boys….and there’s the rain.
The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season is officially underway as the green flag dropped about an hour ago on the season-opening Daytona 500.
But it didn’t long.
The race started with plenty of pageantry, as President Donald Trump attended the Great American Race for the second time and led the field around the track on the pace laps in his presidential motorcade.
President @realDonaldTrump addresses the drivers before the 2025 Daytona 500. pic.twitter.com/DP9hXWjDpm
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) February 16, 2025
Unfortunately, the racing didn’t last long. Just 11 laps into the race, the rain hit Daytona and NASCAR was forced to throw the red flag, bringing the cars down pit road while the weather passes through.
It’s expected that NASCAR will be able to get back to racing and get the entire race in today after the storm passes through, but it looks like it’s going to be at least a few hours before they’re able to get the track dry and go back racing.
So while the race is in a red flag, I figured it would be a good time to revisit one of the wildest red flag moments in NASCAR history – which also occurred during the Daytona 500.
Back in 2012, the Daytona 500 was once again affected by weather, and the race was actually postponed from Sunday to Monday, February 26.
The race finally went green at 7 PM on Monday night. But the odd start time for a Daytona 500 was just foreshadowing of the bizarre events that would occur late in the race.
On lap 157, a car blew an engine and spun in front of traffic, bringing out the race’s seventh caution flag. As the cars were running around the track at caution speed, Juan Pablo Montoya, who was piloting the #42 Target Chevrolet for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, reported feeling a vibration in his car.
Montoya drove his car to pit road and his team checked under the car for the source of the problem. But they weren’t able to find anything, so they sent him back out on the track.
There was clearly SOMETHING wrong with the car through, because as Montoya was entering turn three at near-race speed trying to catch up with the rest of the pack under the caution, whatever had been vibrating in Montoya’s car finally broke and he lost control of his ride.
The car whipped around on Montoya and spun up the track – right into the back of a jet dryer. (If you’re not familiar with NASCAR’s jet dryers, they’re basically jet engines hooked up to trailers on the back of a truck, and they’re pulled around the track to blow off debris and also to dry the racing surface).
The impact caused a huge fireball to erupt from the jet dryer as Montoya’s car slid down the track and came to rest at the bottom of the turn. And it also sent all of the jet fuel pouring on to the track.
To make matters worse though, Terry Labonte then drove through the fuel that had soaked the track, and a spark from his car ignited the massive amounts of fuel, engulfing the track – and the jet dryer – in a spectacular fireball.
Luckily the driver of the jet dryer, Duane Barnes, had already been able to escape, and although he was taken to a local hospital for treatment, walked away with relatively minor injuries.
Track crews worked furiously to extinguish the giant inferno before it caused irreparable damage to the surface of the track and forced NASCAR to call the race prematurely. And after they were able to get the fire put out, the track crew then brought out a special cleaning agent to get the remainder of the fuel out of the surface of the track.
Just kidding: They used boxes of powdered Tide laundry detergent to wash the track down.
Tide,Gets It Super Clean NASCAR's Jet Fuel Track Cleaner. With 40 to go. #Daytona500 pic.twitter.com/HLGO7hO9
— Dave Varner (@SuperDave959) February 28, 2012
The entire episode caused an over two hour delay in the race. And while they waited, one driver gave us a real-time view of what was going on: Brad Keselowski whipped out his cell phone and started tweeting pictures from his racecar and updating us on how the car was handling.
Fire!
My view pic.twitter.com/RWn3xMn6— Brad Keselowski (@keselowski) February 28, 2012
Because of Keselowski’s tweet, NASCAR ultimately decided to put an end to drivers tweeting from their cars during red flags, banning cell phones from the cars later in the season.
Oh, and that wasn’t all that Keselowski was up to during the break: He also had a pretty epic foot race to the port-a-john with Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I went into the portajohn and nearly threw up I was so exhausted. Also, don’t go into a portajohn to catch your breath. THAT is definitely not the place. https://t.co/029fBvRFlR
— Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) February 15, 2022
Montoya obviously wasn’t able to continue on in the race once it restarted, and afterwards he expressed his surprise about the bizarre incident:
“Something fell in the rear of the car and the car just spun into the jet dryer. I felt a vibration and came in. They looked at everything and everything was ok and I still told them ‘I think there is something broke’ and I was coming back into the pits and the car just spun by itself…
I’ve hit a lot of things—but a jet dryer?”
Even then-NASCAR President Mike Helton, who has been with the sport since 1994, said it was unlike anything he had ever seen:
“You would think after 65 years and running all the races that NASCAR has run … that you’ve seen about everything. You do think about, ‘Oh, my gosh, if that can happen, what else can happen?'”
After the race, it was determined that the damage to the burned section of the track was more extensive than previously thought, so the affected area was completely removed and resurfaced prior to NASCAR’s return to Daytona for the Pepsi 400 in July.
Oh, and as for the car that Montoya was driving that day? Well, the infamous “jet dryer car” now lives on Dale Earnhardt Jr’s property in his famous “race car graveyard.”
"I have this car in the race car graveyard."@DaleJr recalled Juan Pablo Montoya's incident with a jet dryer in the 2012 Daytona 500, and an epic footrace with @Keselowski that resulted. #WednesDale pic.twitter.com/lVdriMYFNV
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) June 6, 2018
That’s definitely one of the most unique pieces of NASCAR memorabilia – from one of the more bizarre moments in the sport’s history.
The post With The Daytona 500 In A Rain Delay, Let’s Revisit One Of The Wildest Red Flag Moments: Juan Pablo Montoya Crashing Into A Jet Dryer first appeared on Whiskey Riff.