As Tyler Reddick and Elliott Sadler came off the turn four on the final lap of the PowerShares QQQ 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway, reporters watching from the press box knew it was going to be close.
At the finish line, after side-to-side contact between the two Chevrolets, Reddick was less than three inches ahead, and the scoring monitor showed no time difference between the first- and second-place cars.
When NASCAR announced in the a winning margin of .000 seconds, closest in the sanctioning body’s history, Dale Earnhardt Jr. said, “That’s like a tie. Am I right? Either way, fine with me.”
Earnhardt’s JR Motorsports, of course, owns both cars.
But the race didn’t end in a tie. NASCAR timing and scoring doesn’t measure beyond thousandths of a second and couldn’t express the photo finish in numbers smaller than 0.000.
“Can I protest?” Sadler quipped.