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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Elliott Sadler climbed out of his wrecked No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet in the Daytona International Speedway garage, looked over his car and still managed a reluctant smile even as the race field roared by on track.
After leading three times for 40 laps of the Powershares QQQ 300, Sadler was knocked out of the race on Lap 107 of the extended 124-lap XFINITY Series opener. Contact between Sadler and Austin Dillon from behind in the tight pack of front-running cars sent Sadler’s Chevy spinning on track. And while his crew tried to make repairs, the damage proved too much to fix in the allotted five-minute time window on pit road and he had to settle for a 24th-place finish after starting the race 11th.
“Someone got into the back of us just trying to bump draft,” Sadler said. “It wasn’t anything intentional, it was just go-time. When he hit us it lifted the rear tires off the ground. The OneMain Financial car was really fast. We can’t hang our heads because we were way fast and way good. We’ll rebound (next week) in Atlanta.
“It’s been fun the whole day, really. We had a really good car, it’s a shame to see it get torn up. We did get our bonus points and if we can do that every once in a while it will set us up here for a championship run.
“You have to be aggressive, it’s Daytona. That’s part of racing here, you’ve got to be if you want to win.”
Ryan Reed ultimately won the race to take a likely playoff berth, but Sadler looked like the class of the field for most of the three-hour opener, which included two lengthy red flag periods (totaling more than 40 minutes) for multi-car accidents.
RELATED: Sadler sweeps first two Stages
Sadler, last year’s XFINITY Series championship runner-up, led a race-best 40 laps through the first two stages, earning 20 regular-season points for leading at both the Stage 1 (10 points) and Stage 2 (10 points) breaks. He additionally received two playoff points — again for winning the first two race stages — that could come into play should he make the playoffs. His P24 finished granted him an additional 13 regular-season points, totaling 33 for the day.
Saturday’s effort places Sadler third in the XFINITY Series standings, 14 points behind race winner Reed.
“At least we don’t leave with nothing to show for it,” Sadler said, managing a smile. “We got points to take with us into the playoffs and build on that. Our car was fast and we’ll build on that. Accidents happen.
“With new points system it was fun to race like that, to be honest, and get to each stage and see how people are reacting. Definitely a lot of fun.
“It’s just typical racing. It’s Daytona. You’ve got to go and be aggressive if you want to win. It’s a shame we don’t have anything to show for it.”
On the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series side, Sadler was one of four “open” teams to earn a starting position in Sunday’s Daytona 500 (2 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) and will start 40th in the 40-car field driving the No. 7 Golden Corral Chevrolet.