Jamie McMurray was so happy the race was finally over he couldn't hold back the tears. Or, was it because he won the biggest race of his career. McMurray won his first race with Ganassi years ago and this year he returned to Ganassi after leaving to drive for Roush-Fenway and in his first race back with the team he is back in victory lane once again.

McMurray was the odd man out last year when the time came for Roush-Fenway to drop one of its five teams to drop down to the maximum of four cars per team limit and with Martin Truex Jr. leaving Earnhardt Ganassi it became the perfect opportunity for McMurray to rejoin Ganassi. Just as he did years ago when he stepped in to relief drive for Sterling Marlin at Charlotte after he was injured at Kansas and went on to win his first race with Ganassi at Charlotte. Now, he's back with Ganassi and in his first race with the team he's back in victory lane.

The racing was pretty good, but the two delays for pot hole repair that together delayed the race for over 2 hours were a bit much for the race to take. Many teams joked during the two delays about NASCAR just putting a traffic cone in the hole and telling the drivers to avoid it. Then, later the FOX booth trio made jokes during the delay for the second patch job about the safety vehicle being parked near the hole and that they should park the truck over the new patch so the drivers wouldn't pull the new patch back up again. They said that the track was scheduled for a new repaving in 2011, but NASCAR can't afford to have a patch caution every 40 laps in July so I'd expect that will be moved up to this Spring.

The Daytona 500's unique qualifying events found Jimmie Johnson edging Kevin Harvick and Kasey Kahne edging Tony Stewart as they went on to win their respective Duel qualifying events on Thursday. Johnson, in a backup car, elected to stay out on the track during a late caution and had just enough to hold off a hard charging Harvick for the win. Kahne raced up front all race, but Stewart charged up in the second half of the race to make a run for the win. Kahne would have just enough to beat Stewart to the finish line with Kurt Busch pushing.

The tense part of the Duel qualifying racing was the two qualifying drivers that were trying to race their way into the race. Michael Waltrip was strong and looking to race his way in when he said his tires were vibrating and pushing and he had to lift causing him to be hit from behind and spun. Waltrip had the fifth fastest go or go home qualifying speed and needed one of the four faster qualifiers to race their way in to open up his chance to use his qualifying time after his wreck took his fate out of his hands. Neither Bill Elliott or Joe Nemechek would race their way into the 500 in the first race and so they relied on their qualifying times and Waltrip's fate would be in the hands of Bobby Labonte and Scott Speed in the second Duel race.

The second duel race found Mike Bliss, Casey Mears, Scott Speed and Bobby Labonte racing together and swapping spots in nearly every lap and keeping Waltrip on the edge of his seat the entire race. In the end, it was Paul Menard who got loose and held up Mears and Labonte giving Scott Speed a run on the bottom to make the move four wide down the back straight to move into the second transfer spot. Mike Bliss had the other transfer spot and they came back around to the checkered flag with Bliss leading Speed to the line and Mears and Labonte trailing them. Speed's ability to grab the second transfer spot pulled Waltrip into the Daytona 500 and bumped out Mears.

The win for Johnson put him in third behind his teammates, Mark Martin on the pole and Dale Earnhardt Jr. who started second in the 500. Johnson was joined in the second row by Kasey Kahne who put Richard Petty Motorsports in victory lane for the first time since switching to Ford in the off-season. Kahne's teammate, AJ Allmendigner, had a strong car in the first Duel race, but had a pit stop problem as he slid through his pit box and lost a lot of track position. He would race back forward in the pack, but not be a factor for the win.

The 500 set some records with 21 different leaders breaking the record of 18. It was also the longest Daytona 500 in more ways than one. The two red flags sent an afternoon event into the evening hours and NASCAR's new rule for there to be as many as three green-white-checkered finishes to give the fans a better chance of seeing a green flag finish. This Daytona 500 required two green-white-checkered attempts to finish the race sending the race a record distance of 208 laps and 520 miles.

In the end, Greg Biffle pushed Jamie McMurray out to the lead, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. drove up from tenth to second and chased McMurray to the checkered flag. During the race it looked like Richard Petty Motorsports was going to have a great day with A.J. Allmendinger, Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler all leading the race, but the final three cautions picked those three off one by one. Also with a good day was Richard Childress Racing, but Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer both were shuffled back out of the lead in the closing laps.