Bud Shootout bores this fan

The two-car packs sped around Daytona last night and excited the FOX announcers. Heck it was even exciting for the drivers. There were 28 lead changes during the event, the most in the 33-year history of the Shootout.

It didn’t excite me. Call me negative, but I found the two-car packs to very, very boring.

And I sat through the 2008 Brickyard 400 in person.

Drivers disagreed with me though. Race winner Kurt Busch felt the racing was great.

“It’s fun as hell,” Busch said after the race.

“Two cars just hook up, and it seems like the air comes off the front car and clears that second car perfectly,” Busch added. “If you have a third car, the air comes off that front car, lands onto the third car and that third car can't break through.”

Busch was pushed from what he referred to as his “teammate of the day,” Jamie McMurray.

“McMurray was everything for us tonight with his ability to stay tucked up behind us and to keep the two-car chain attached,” he said.

McMurray, the defending Daytona 500 champion, also enjoyed the two-car breakaways.

“It was a lot of fun,” said McMurray. “It’s really weird to push somebody all the way around the track and side draft with two guys that are also pushing all the way around the track. It’s just the strangest feeling. But it was a lot of fun tonight. I really had a good time.”

“That was the most unexpected race I've ever been a part of,” said Ryan Newman, who led the field hundreds of feet from the finish line, but finished 3rd.

Denny Hamlin, who technically was the first car back to the line, also felt the racing was great.

“I thought it was good, I thought the racing was great,” said Hamlin, who was penalized for passing Newman below the double-yellow line, and finished 12th. “It was really hard for any two groups of cars to stay up front. For me, I was hoping to put ourselves in position for the win and made a little mistake.”

SBNation NASCAR reporter Jeff Gluck is running an informal poll on his blog, asking fans for their opinion. As of 11 a.m. on Sunday morning, Gluck has compiled just over 560 votes. Of those who voted in Gluck’s poll, 48 percent say they didn’t like the two-by-two racing, and preferred big packs, like the old-time Daytona.

Slightly below one-quarter of those who voted, 24 percent, said they liked it, and 26 percent of those that voted said they’ll wait to see more racing before making up their mind.

My mind is made up: not so much fun. I too prefer the bigger packs. We’ll see what happens when true racing returns on Thursday for the Gatorade Duels. Until then, there will be plenty of discussion about the upcoming Daytona 500, including qualifying today, and Mark Martin talk all this week.

Enjoy single-car runs today. Thanks for reading.