sprint cup not what she hoped for. greg looking at the overall bigger picture. able to repair h her race car. out on the racetrack now trying to drive with the other drivers and gain more knowledge until she gets back into her next sprint cup race in darlington. >> mike: 13 times in 53 daytona 500s the halfway lap leader has gone on to win the race. but as is j.r. pointed out not in the last 20 years. i like the roush fenway fords and particularly matt kenseth. hamlin out front where he has led the second most laps tonight. second to greg biffle. they are among the contenders to win the 2012 running of the great american race on fox. hey ladies. this movie is not for you!

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>> mike: aerial coverage brought to you by directv. call 1-800-directv. 107 laps complete. 93 to go in the daytona 500. denny hamlin and martin truex run one, two. burton is fourth. here is what truex had to say after taking the $200,000 pay day. >> [radio]: going to get the halfway. you got the halfway. clear all around. >> go get the other half now.

thanks for the push. thanks for the push. >> [radio]: let's get after these guys. got 100 more. >> mike: 100 laps to go. 92 now remain. of all the drivers that have tried the tandem racing truex and hamlin so far tonight have been the most successful at it. >> darrell: the frustrating thing we saw with tony stewart and have seen it with the 31 car, would get up there but to you make the wrong move you go straight to the back and have to work your way back up through there again. >> mike: our pole sitter has not made a lot of noise lately. carl edwards is back in 21st place. dick berggren? >> dick: he had been running further up in the pack but he has been having fuel pressure issues injuries the engine is running all right but the fuel pressure is going up and down in the car and fuel pressure light is periodical flashing.

the engines don't run well if they don't have good fuel pressure. >> larry: for the first time nascar is running electronic fuel injection. we heard elliott sadler having the fuel pressure issues. even though i think we have it well perfected we are still seeing issues along the way. >> darrell: we only had short races. this is a 500-mile races a if you have fears you will see it in the second half of the race because this is the longest we have run with this new system. >> mike: hamlin, truex, biffle, burton and bowyer the top five. three toyotas, a ford and a chevrolet. the first dodge in the race is kezelowski in 9th. this the lead pack, 25 cars. with 32 cars on the lead lap with 90 to go in the daytona 500.

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lowes. never stop improving. denny hamlin leading with 114 laps complete of 200 in the daytona 500 on fox. get in on the action with fox fantasy racing presented by farmer's insurance. pick your team of five drivers, each raise before the green flag drops. sign up today at foxsports.com/fantasy. kasey kahne 7th place in his new henrik motorsports ride for farmer's. >> darrell: quietly riding along there. haven't heard a whole lot out of kasey yet. i say yet. >> mike: up at the top lane, right-side of your screen the orange car of joey logano has been pushing the deuce of brad kezelowski and they got up within four cars of the lead. got no further and started to drift back just a bit. >> larry: that is a couple of

drivers, brad kezelowski in the 2 and joey logano in the 20 that spend times visiting troops in cuba for four days. >> mike: as the cars race around the track for at nearly 200 miles an hour nascar has a minimum speed that each car must maintain and they have advised clint bowyer -- excuse me, elliott sadler he needs to pick up the pace in number 33 and maintain pace or bring his car to the garage. >> darrell: speaking of clint bowyer let's go to pit road. >> krista: one of the story lines is whether the cars would overheat. we haven't heard any drivers complaining about overheating until now. clint bowyer on lap 104 told his team my car is getting hotter and hotter. five laps later i can't keep it cool and one lap ago, you guys i cannot keep this thing cool at all. >> larry: michael waltrip, he ran in the budweiser shootout

gatorade duel. he has time in a race car this week. him and i had a conversation the other day. it is manageable. watch your gage and your lights but got to stick that thing out there and breathe it but if you let it go too far you might not be able to recover. >> michael: he laid back and when gets a chance he pops the nose out to the right to get fresh air into the engine. that is a huge concern. back close to the front running with a gap in front of him and he can't keep his engine cool. how is he going to go win the race at the end? >> larry: and this year a smaller capacity radiator. now, if you lose a little bit of water that equates to a whole lot of water and you get hot a lot quicker. he may have got in trouble and can't get out. >> mike: to discourage lengthy bump drafting in tandem nascar minimized the size of the opening in the bumper for the radiator to get any cool air.

if you are up against the bumper of the car in front of you you are not getting cool air at all. >> darrell: short events the last few days. 500 miles her. halfway a lot of things start handling. engines start overheating, the car starts handling poorly. halfway is a big deal. >> mike: tony stewart what looks like a black piece of tape, that is all the gap you get to get air in there to the radiator. >> to control the temperature issue. made big improvements on the 14 car. the chassis adjustment helped tighten the car up like stewart wanted. says it is the best it has been all night. the other adjustment. a high tech tool. sprayed antifog on it and on a pitstop used it on the inside of the wind shield. it was fogging up. if you want to see the high tech tool go to my twitter page for more. >> larry: so much humidity in the air even though we haven't

had rain since about 4:00 this afternoon. a lot of humidity. >> mike: the outside lane now 8 deep and they are trying to make noise and move up and challenge the inside lane dominated by denny hamlin. what happened when ford owners compared their trucks to a chevy silverado? i can see myself driving in this for hours and hours. i like it. man: i would definitely consider a silverado trade-up from the pick-up truck that i've got right now. [ male announcer ] we dare you to compare your truck to a chevy silverado, the most dependable, longest lasting full-size pick-ups on the road. celebrate president's day. get 0% financing for 60 months on all 2012 silverados. if you trade in an eligible vehicle, get an additional $1,000 trade-in allowance. offer ends february 29th. all your favorites all in one place. a medium one-topping pizza... freshly baked breadsticks... and cinnamon sticks. plus marinara and sweet icing for dipping. best of all, the 10 dollar dinner box is only 10 bucks. and only at your pizza hut.

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>> mike: the daytona 500 on fox is sponsored by diet mountain dew. yeah, it it tastes that good. 76 laps to go in the daytona 500. let's take it inside look at what is happening in the nascar sprint cup series brought to you by sprint. denny hamlin the race leader. led the most laps tonight. 47. more than he has led in his six prior 500s total. he is also the biggest mover in the race. 28 spots ahead of where he started. get unlimited access to the nascar sprint cup series with live audio and real time stats available through the sprint cup mobile app on your android powered device. only on the sprint network the only national carrier with truly unlimited data. learn more at sprint.com/speed.

>> darrell: mike be you said here if you are denny hamlin in the 11 car and thinking am i really this good or am i a sitting duck. you don't really know. there is such an uncertainty. just never have the confidence that you have the car to hold these guys off, particularly as a couple of them get outside of you and start pushing each other. >> larry: mike, we are real close to green flag pitstops. it will be then a one stop race to get to the end. >> darrell: that is the other thing if you are in the pack you are trying to figure out who was it that i got hooked up with that we ran the best laps with. where is he and can we get hooked upnd do it again. you are at the point in the race right now, where you are really fast forwarding a lot to the next pitstop and what are you going to do at the end of the race. >> mike: in the last 11 years only one time has the driver who led the most laps won the

500. that was michael waltrip in '03. bowyer. look at that engine has finally given up. >> darrell: i don't know if he has got trouble. i think he does or else -- yeah, he is definitely slowing. >> mike: can he make it to pit road. >> larry: not now. >> darrell: that could have been disasterrous. >> mike: there are various places he can pull off the track without bringing out a caution but they would not get him back to pit road. so clint bowyer from kansas limps around the track and i believe he is out of gas. krista? >> krista: that is what he came on the radio and said. they thought they had the overheating issue earlier. that is the least of the concerns now. he came on and said guys, how did this happen, we are out of fuel. >> darrell: in the last six races here, mike he has the best average finish of 12.2. a big blow to that team.

>> larry: he last pitted on lap 82 which is the same lap that edwards pitted. we are seeing them come to pit road. >> mike: the caution is out for clint bowyer. it will be the sixth caution flag of the night. >> larry: joey logano in the 20 went on through the pits. tony stewart is going to complete his pitstop. he will be able to do this and stay on the lead lap and more than likely get the lead when all of the other drivers come to pit road. >> darrell: the cars are slowed down the back going into three. tony's work is done. everybody is going to pit. larry, you are right he will assume the lead when everybody pits. >> larry: joey logano and his team panicked right there. they should have went ahead and made their pitstop. >> mike: sixth caution flag. there is clint bowyer as the pace car gets set to come out and pick up the field and the

push truck will have to come to bowyer's aid. >> darrell: you have to give bowyer credit. he was going to try to get on pit road. but two race cars coming at him at about 200 miles an hour and couldn't do it. >> larry: here is what is also interesting. pit road is closed. jeff burton is on pit road. i get a feeling he was probably about out of fuel. matt? >> matt: the car coughed a couple of times. they will hit pit road and take the penalty and now have a bigger issue on the 31 machine. >> darrell: with the electronic fuel injection they have two pumps in the tank and a pump in the center. so when you are out of fuel, you are out of fuel. >> mike: first time for electronic engine management including electronic fuel injection in nascar and for many of the cars the first time with electric fuel pumps and if you are wondering about the safety risk of those, there are

parameters in the computer that can sense lie oil pressure, security the engine down so that an electric fuel pump like a conventional one might keep pumping if a car had crashed our engine had blown. not any more. it won't happen. >> darrell: one of the best things we done going to fuel injection and all that goes with it. made the cars even better and safer. >> mike: elliott sadler completed his stop. ryan newman gets the free pass. that will put 28 cars back on the lead lap when we get ready to restart. 71 laps to go. cars running down on the flat to ensure they get that fuel picked up in the fuel cell and get it to the engine so they can make it all the way around to pit road. some of the cars may have been very close on fuel. >> larry: the way the lift pumps are in the fuel cell, i'm not sure that makes a whole lot of difference. >> mike: steve? >> steve: martin truex, jr.'s crew chief told him to cut the

engine because they were so concerned with running out of fuel. the 56 plans on taking four tires. denny hamlin the same. krista? >> krista: as greg biffle roles in. two tires on o the last stop. the plan here to pack it through as much fuel as possible. the crew coming around to take four tires on the stop for greg biffle. >> matt: aric almirola is in. adjustment on the 43 and he is away. >> mike: who wins the race off pit road? looks like regan smith. a collision in the pit lane. >> darrell: the 33 couldn't find his pit box and he was wandering around in pit road and caused a bottle neck right there. >> larry: we had 28 or 29 drivers on pit road at one time. >> mike: cato new york's regan smith puts himself in position out front.

>> mike: under caution at daytona with 69 laps to go. let's go down to the university of farmer's and jeff hammond. >> jeff: all during the race i have been listening and washing what is going on. here in the latter part of the race what i learned is you have to find your dance partner and got to have somebody to race with. are the thing we haven't talked a lot about and we will check up in a minute are the spotters. they got to start working extra hard to get you back up there toward the front. one of the guys riding in the back, the 29 car of kevin harvick. watch him and his spotter work to get the 29 together late in the race. >> mike: 68 to go this time bay when they take the green flag

for the restart. kevin harvick jeff mentioned is in 13th. two cars took the wave around and did not stop on the caution. landon caccilled and david reutimann. mark martin and tony stewart up there getting the green flag. then with regan smith and the rest of the pack double wide. 48 --s on the lead lap with 48 with 68 to go. ageless mark martin leads the daytona 500. a driver that retired six years ago and then found new life. he has been with two different teams since. and will run a partial schedule this year. that number 55. surrendering the lead to biffle and hamlin. >> darrell: mark brings so much energy to a team. he is a smart guy and knows a

race carin side and out. he just comes in and he will energize the team. >> larry: and denny hamlin in the 11 laid on the bumper of biffle and pushed him into the lead. >> darrell: i think biffle is the guy that is really i won't say confused but hasn't been able to figure out the right place to be at the right time. we saw it at the halfway mark and saw it the other day in his qualifying race. he has a car that can win this thing if he can get somebody to work with him and play it cool. >> mike: and three cars in the mix deserve mix. we talked about regan smith in the black chevrolet, number 78. side-by-side behind him the 9 and 43. the two fords of richard petty motorsports. marcos ambrose from australia and in petty blue and white the kings number 43 and the new driver from tampa, florida, aric almirola. >> darrell: i want to give a call to the driver in the 13 car, mike, casey mears.

a driver that missed the daytona 500 a year ago. they come here and made a make change over the off season. qualified up front. and now he is up here running up front. >> darrell: larry, casey mears is a good driver. he bootie barker were beside themselves by the races they had down here. qualifying well and racing well. >> mike: mears trying to hang on to a top 15 spot on the outside. hard to do. >> darrell: if somebody looks at the 13 car of casey mears they say maybe i don't want to run with him. always looking for a bigger name in the other line if you know what i mean. >> mike: understood. but if the car has speed he can be your new best friend. >> darrell: trevor bayne last year proved that. trevor's car was fast and people wanted to work with him. got to prove you got something under the hood to get up there and lead this thing.

>> mike: dale, jr. 18th. danica patrick. many laps down. still logging laps. >> larry: the 10 car waiting for the pack to catch up to her. she couldn't catch up to the pack before the restart. said it is absolutely zero fun right now but she is learning and will try to learn more when the pack gets her. >> mike: car is pretty beat up but has a new rear end. >> darrell: that looks almost as bad as kyle busch's car are when won the budweiser shootout the other night. >> mike: haven't seen a lot of kyle tonight. you see him there in the picture. there is junior. there is kasey kahne. ride kahne.