Who would have thought it would have been the Daytona 500 and not the Winter Olympics that would produce the most hilarious tape delay fail in February?  Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the 2014 Daytona 500 just before midnight on the east coast after a rain delay lasting several hours.  With the race red flagged, Fox decided to show last year's race in the afternoon.  This is a common tactic for rain delayed racing coverage, but it caught tons of people off guard.  In fact, many people… even NEWS OUTLETS… congratulated Jimmie Johnson for winning the Daytona 500 in real time, caught completely unaware that they were watching last year's race that the #48 car won!

Perhaps they didn't notice the new paint schemes on the cars for the 2014.  Or, they missed the memo on TV or in social media that the 2014 race was in fact in a rain delay.  Then again, they could have been too distracted trying to find a stream for the closing ceremonies so they could watch The Walking Dead in primetime.  Whatever the case may be, it's a reminder that sometimes we ain't as smart as we seem and the evolutionary process hasn't quite reached its peak.

Here's just two examples from Fox News Channel and KTXS in Texas…

There were countless others from normal people live-tweeting a year old race and you can find many that haven't been deleted in a simple Twitter search for "congrats Jimmie Johnson."  The time warp meme quickly caught on and some in NASCAR even got in on the fun like fellow driver Clint Bowyer…

Best of all, Johnson joined in on the joke before going on to finish 5th in the 2014 race…  

Perhaps this is the next innovation for Olympic coverage. Tape delaying events not just for a few hours, but an entire year! Just imagine the kind of narratives that can be crafted in that timespan. It's an idea that's just crazy enough…

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