A late race crash gave fuel-short race leader Dale Earnhardt Jr. just the breathing room he needed to win the inaugural NASCAR iRacing.com World Championship Series race. The yellow flag flew with just two laps remaining in the 100-lap race at Daytona International Speedway, just as Earnhardt was about to pit for a quick splash of fuel. Instead, with his virtual Chevy Impala SS coughing as the fuel began to run out, Earnhardt swept under the checkered flag for the victory.

"Coming through Turns 3-4 with two laps left I had to prepare for a pit stop for a little gas," Earnhardt said. "I looked in the mirror and saw an accident and the yellow came out. At this point I had exactly three-tenths of a gallon left and sputtered across the line to take the yellow. After two more laps of sputtering I took the checkered and that was that. You can't get any luckier than that."

Earnhardt, who had problems with the steering wheel in his racing simulator during qualifying, started 19th in the 37-car field and methodically made his way toward the front. "I knew I had a quick car and made a couple moves up the middle throughout the first run and got all the way up to third," he said.

While Earnhardt took the strategy of going to the front as quickly as possible, others took the opposite approach. Jesse Atchison, Robert Hall, and John Prather all lay back expecting a big wreck.

Atchison, who drove through the field at the end to finish eighth, said "I went to the back because Earnhardt, Fogel and [Jordan] Erickson were all going up the middle three wide, and I wasn't sure of if the people around them could hold it. It turns out that they did and that may have cost me a chance to win due to being so far back when I pitted."

Pole-winner Josh Parker dominated the first half of the race, which went caution free until the end, when a miscue by Erickson set off the sort of chain reaction wreck that often happens on superspeedways like Daytona. But leading the race cost Parker fuel mileage and he was forced to pit for gas on Lap 47, three laps before the half-way point -- and then was penalized for speeding on pit road.

Pit road saw as much excitement as the track itself. Front-row starter Jim Caudill Jr. also was caught speeding, and other drivers had miscues getting into the pits, damaging their chances to win.

It was savvy pitwork on Earnhardt's part that put him in the lead. "I guess I had a hell of a good stop 'cause when the cycle was over I was leading," he said. "I was happy about this but then came to the realization that I wouldn't make it to the end on fuel."

But then came Erickson's wreck. "After five to go, it was just balls to the wall," he said. "I saw a gap in the middle and threw it in there and started to make up a few spots to hopefully break into the top-10. But it didn't last too long -- I got squeezed up into the high line, wrecked and ended a lot of people's race. Either way, I'd make that same move again."