Underdog steals show at Daytona 500–almost
USA Today journalist Nate Ryan’s coverage of the Daytona 500 dwelled too much on the teams that unexpectedly lost–Gibbs Racing and Hendrick Motorsports–instead of the underdog Penske team that pulled through with a one-two win. While the upset certainly is newsworthy, employing it as the lead makes for an intro that steals credit from the hero of the day–Ryan Newman–and Kyle Busch, his teammate and assistant in winning the race. It’s almost as if the author totally missed the point: The real story here is that Ryan Newman and Penske Racing won the Daytona 500–enough said. No need to look for a more interesting angle. Fans want to know who won. Then they want to know who almost won. Only then do they want to know why the best cars of the preliminary races happened to lose. The names of the two teams who were upstaged even start the third paragraph, as if to intentionally further delay presentation of the name of the race’s winner (not to mention making for a confusingly awkward sentence). Come on Mr. Ryan–are Gibbs and Hendrick paying you to keep them in the spotlight? I often wonder if foul play is involved when underdog athletes hardly make the headlines when they do the unexpected and those who didn’t do the expected still manage to nearly steal the show. I just think that no matter who wins the Daytona 500, that’s the story, and the winner deserves his moment of fame to be undiminished by those that, unfortunately, didn’t win.
