Column: Forget the Clouds, Look at Silver Lining The Daytona 500 wasn't just delayed. It was a flat-out disaster. But if the folks at NASCAR are as smart as they think, they'll chalk up the fiery explosion that made it an unbearably long night to bad luck, then forget about the storm clouds that postponed the start by a day - and look hard for a silver lining. Because that's what Monday night's race could turn out to be. Sure, five-time circuit champion Jimmie Johnson was out after just two laps, sidelined in the same wreck that reduced glamour girl Danica Patrick and defending champ Trevor Bayne to also-rans for the rest of the race. Even the last lap was anticlimactic. Matt Kenseth cruised comfortably to the win, in large part because his teammate Greg Biffle couldn't do much with a late push from Dale Earnhardt Jr. By the time it ended, there were probably more fans left in the stands than still looking in on TV across the land. For all that, though, "Monday Night Racing" is an experiment that might be worth trying again. NASCAR is still America's No. 2 sport by most important measures, but it's struggling just to hold its place and it's always going to be stuck between a rock and the NFL. That's one reason NASCAR czar Brian France has dipped into the NFL playbook for ideas in the past, and this one deserves a long look. Moving a regular-season race or two from a weekend slot to Monday night might be just the spark his sport needs to keep a still-fragile recovery on track. Emergency workers try to put out a fire after Juan Pablo Montoya's car struck the truck during the NASCAR Daytona 500 auto race at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla., Monday, Feb. 27, 2012. France is smart enough to know the problem with building an empire is that sooner or later, you bump into someone else's. So instead of competing head-to-head against pro football, baseball or basketball - NASCAR bumps up against all three at some point in its season - he's bent over backward positioning his sport as a complementary package and squeezing his races into time slots dictated by his TV partners. The Daytona 500 might be NASCAR's Super Bowl, but had it gone off as originally scheduled Sunday afternoon, it would have been a dimming memory for most sports fans by the time the Oscars and NBA All-Star game rolled around later that evening. Complain all you want about the heavy rain that forced postponement of the race for the first time in its 54-year history - there was plenty of that - but having the stage to itself is an opportunity the sport should jump at. NASCAR already has a handful of evening starts sprinkled into the schedule, and the biggest obstacle to moving one or more of those to Monday night is that it would cut into preparation time for the next weekend's race. Teams often stop off at their garages near NASCAR headquarters in Charlotte, N.C., to swap or modify their cars, then load up the haulers before hitting the road again. But during one stretch from late August through early September, the circuit has three night races in a row at Bristol, Tenn., Atlanta and Richmond, Va. All three tracks are within easy driving distance of Charlotte and close enough to keep delays to a minimum. And none of the three - in order, the "Irwin Tools Night Race," the "AdvoCare 500," and the "Wonderful Pistachios 400" - would be sacrificing much in the way of tradition by moving to Monday night.