2003 Daytona 500

2003 Daytona 500

Race details
Race 1 of 36 in the 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup Series
2003 Daytona 500 logo
Date	February 16, 2003 (2003-02-16)
Location	Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, Florida
Course	Permanent racing facility 2.5 mi (4.02336 km)
Distance	109 laps, 272.5 mi (438.546 km)
Scheduled Distance	200 laps, 500 mi (804.672 km)
Weather	Warm with temperatures reaching up to 81 °F (27 °C); wind speeds approaching 22.9 miles per hour (36.9 km/h)[1]
Average speed	133.870 miles per hour (215.443 km/h)
Attendance	200,000[2]
Pole position
Driver	Jeff Green	Richard Childress Racing
Qualifying race winners
Duel 1 Winner	Robby Gordon	Richard Childress Racing
Duel 2 Winner	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Dale Earnhardt Inc.
Most laps led
Driver	Michael Waltrip	Dale Earnhardt Inc.
Laps	68
Winner
No. 15	Michael Waltrip	Dale Earnhardt Inc.
Television in the United States
Network	Fox
Announcers	Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds
Nielsen Ratings	16.8 (9.8/21 million viewers)

The 2003 Daytona 500, the 45th running of the event, was the first race of the 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup season, having been held on February 16 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. 2000 NASCAR Busch Series champion Jeff Green won his second career Winston Cup pole.

Prior to the race, the drivers paid tribute by having decals on their cars in honor of the astronauts who were killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster two weeks earlier, similar to the 1986 Daytona 500, in which they paid tribute to the fallen crew members of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. In addition, the pledge of allegiance and pre-race opening invocation given by the Reverend Hal Marchman, in his next-to-last running of the event before his retirement and subsequent death, were recited. Grammy Award-winning artist Mariah Carey then performed the national anthem.

The race ended after 109 laps when rain had begun pouring on the track. Michael Waltrip won the race for the second time in three years, giving him his third NASCAR Winston Cup win; all of his wins to that point had been in races held at Daytona. It was the first of Waltrip's two wins in 2003, both coming in restrictor plate races (he later won the EA Sports 500 at Talladega in October for his fourth and last Cup win). For the first time since 1966, the race was stopped due to rain; at 272.5 miles, it had been the shortest Daytona 500 ever.

During lap 58 into the race, Ryan Newman had an accident in the tri-oval, where his No. 12 Dodge tumbled end-over-end onto the track's infield grass, but he was not injured in the crash.

This is the first Daytona 500 event that respected Winston Cup veteran Dave Marcis did not attempt since 1967, a whole season before he had started driving.