Fill-in-the-blank: Daytona 500

Can you believe it? —Kurt Busch won the Daytona 50025 cars finished the Daytona 500A last-lap pass to decide the Daytona 500The Monster Energy car in Victory Lane! I’ve seen everything now. This was the —wildestmost recentbestmost entertaining Daytona 500 since —the last Daytona 500Clint Bowyer finished the race upside down and on firethat time Ward Burton won the racethat time Trevor Bayne won the race

This race had it all: —a new Daytona 500 winnerpit strategyfuel mileageMichael Waltrip finishing as the highest Toyota, —teammates wrecking together on multiple occasionsonly odd-numbered cars finishing in the top 515 cars finishing on the lead lapRob Gronkowski, and most of all, —Brendan Gaughansix Daytona rookies37 lead changesthe winner only leading a single lap.

I don’t think anybody expected to see —the Toyota teams crash together halfway through the raceTony Gibson celebrate boisterouslyCole Whitt have a shot at winning the racelike, three clean cars at the end of the race in totalboth Furniture Row cars pass inspection. I haven’t seen anything that crazy since —Trevor Bayne won the 2011 Daytona 500the pre-race grid walkSterling Marlin tugged on his fender under the red flagCarl Edwards suddenly retired.

And how about —Michael Waltrip’s final raceRyan Blaney’s charge to the finishDenny Hamlin not speeding on pit road for one whole raceCorey LaJoie making the race only to crash out early! Unbelievable, right? He’s such —a millenniala good race car drivera disappointmentan important part of the future of the sport.

This was the first race with —NASCAR’s new stage-based race formatDaniel SuarezJimmie Johnson’s beardStewart-Haas Racing driving FordsMonster Energy as series title sponsor. It was a big change, which made me feel —happy insideuncomfortableexcited for the futureoptimistic, yet —wondering how it would have been normallyyearning for the pastsuspiciously thirstymissing Carl Edwardslike Sterling Marlin with a fresh bag of Doritos. This Daytona 500 was also the first one —with the five-minute post-crash clock in placewithout Greg Biffleto feature no Joe Gibbs Racing cars on the lead lapwithout a Labonte since 1978, which makes me so —confusedfrustratednervousexciteddifferent inside!

I’m just glad this —darncrash-filledFord-dominatedunderdog-ladenBrian Scott-less race didn’t go too much longer than it did. After all, I’ve got to —watch the Academy Awardschange my preseason playoff pickswatch how Ryan Blaney passed like 30 cars on the last lapfigure out how Kevin Harvick is fourth in pointsweep alongside fellow Toyota fanswatch the entire race again from the beginning in case something changesthrow my Kevin Harvick 2017 Daytona 500 champion T-shirt in the trashfigure out if Kyle Busch’s segment win gets him closer to 200 career winsget this car fixed before my five minutes expires.