2012 Daytona 500 Highlights, Fiery Explosion Video

This year’s running of the legendary Daytona 500 NASCAR race was interesting to say the least.

The tale starts with a storm, quite a large rain storm, that left the track soaking wet through Sunday, causing NASCAR officials to push the race back a day. This was the first time in the Daytone 500’s 54 consecutive years of running that the race has been displaced a day thanks to rain. The rain troubles continued into Monday morning, causing NASCAR to once again push back the race to 7pm Monday night.

Finally the track dried and the scene was set for the great American race. Things started off with a bang after a serious wreck in the second lap. There were a few pile-ups throughout, but the wreck-of-the night award goes to Jaun-Pablo Montoya, famed F1 driver turned NASCAR left-hand turner.

Montoya was running well back from the pack coming into turn three under a yellow flag when some mechanical bit on his car failed, causing the car to careen directly into a jet dryer truck that was out blowing debris off the track. The result was a fireball of epic proportions, which is more enjoyable to watch now because we know that both Jaun Pablo Montoya and the driver of the jet dryer were, for the most part, unharmed. The track jet blowers on these trucks are powered by kerosene, which unfortunately started spilling all over the track after the crash, further augmenting the flames.

After another two hour and five minute delay under a red flag, the drivers got back to racing, but not before driver Brad Keselowski managed to tweet a picture he took from the behind the wheel of his #22 Dodge Challenger. Keselowski’s live tweeting from pit row gained him over 100,000 twitter followers in the two-hour gap.

You can find the crash video, Keselowski’s twitter pics and other highlights from the 2012 Daytona 500 below.

GALLERY: Daytona 500 Brad Keselowski Pictures

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