MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Ryan Truex will roll into Kentucky Speedway this weekend with JR Motorsports’ No. 8 team, carrying a new partnership from award-winning country music duo Florida Georgia Line and the band’s official merchandise website, ShopFGL.com.
“I’ve been anxious to get back behind the wheel of this No. 8 car ever since we had such a strong run back in Phoenix,” Truex said. “To be able to do it with Florida Georgia Line and ShopFGL.com is awesome. We have a great relationship with FGL lead singers Tyler (Hubbard) and Brian (Kelley), who are currently on their ‘Can’t Say I Ain’t Country’ tour. I think everyone agrees that country music and NASCAR fans are synonymous with each other, which makes this a perfect relationship. I love the look of this throwback scheme and can’t wait to unload at Kentucky.”
The old-school red and gold paint scheme of the FGL / ShopFGL.com Chevrolet drew inspiration from the classic liveries of motorsport legends Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Tim Richmond. The paint scheme is also replicated on the fan-favorite single “Speed of Love” T-shirt, available at ShopFGL.com. To celebrate the partnership, fans that visit ShopFGL.com can use promo code GORYAN20 for 20 percent off their entire order.
Since 2012, FGL has earned prestigious honors from the AMAs, ACM Awards, CMA Awards, Billboard Music Awards and CMT Music Awards, plus left its mark on several chart-crushing songs as writers.
The duo were Billboard’s first-ever Trailblazer Award recipients.
The Kentucky event marks Truex’s second race of the 2019 season. His lone start for JRM came in March when he drove the No. 8 to the team’s season-best finish, a second-place effort at Phoenix Raceway.
The No. 8 is currently ranked 12th in owner points on the strength of four top-five and 11 top-10 finishes.
The Alsco 300 at Kentucky Speedway airs on Friday, July 12 at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN.
Nearly 48 hours after Justin Haley’s first career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory in a rain-shortened Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway, Spire Motorsports employees are still busy going through the email inbox.
In an exclusive interview with NASCAR.com, Spire Motorsports co-owner Jeff Dickerson shed light on how business has been positively impacted after launching a behind-the-scenes start-up to the limelight of NASCAR’s premier series — explaining how opportunities that were originally declined by companies have been brought back to life.
“That’s encouraging,” Dickerson said. ” … I think that’s really what Sunday did — those guys decided to give us another look and turn those things into meaningful partnerships, not just for us but for the sport.”
Through the hype of a surprise triumph, sticking to the game plan is the only plan for the No. 77 team, formed last December after the purchase of defunct Furniture Row Racing’s charter from former team owner Barney Visser.
“I don’t know that anything has changed,” Dickerson said. “I think everyone was expecting us to burn it down and tear it down. … The fact of the matter is, the guys drove home, they came to the office on Monday morning and they reached out to not only to the sales leads for Spire Motorsports, but for the sales lead for our clients. It’s literally business as usual.”
Joe Garone, the president of Spire Motorsports who held the same role previously at Furniture Row Racing, also has played a vital role in keeping the train on the tracks despite the spotlight a win provided.
“We knew what we were fighting this year,” Dickerson said. “We knew we were up against it. We knew we were getting a late start, and Joe is really adamant about making sure to give us a little bit of hope and encouragement. … Joe has been really good about saying, ‘Hey, stick to the plan, stay on the path, this is exactly what we did.’ They were able to do it a little bit under the radar and so were we until about Lap 127 the other night.”
Dickerson credited co-owner T.J. Puchyr for keeping the team grounded while continuing to work through what the future holds for the up-and-coming group.
“We’ve had to stay pretty disciplined here on what we’re trying to accomplish,” Dickerson said. “We will be punching above our weight class here a handful of times, and we’ll announce that a little bit down the road. It’s just what T.J. has been preaching to our group. We have a plan, and we’re going to stick to that plan. It wouldn’t have mattered if we had won the race or finished dead last, we have a plan. I think that plan will come into focus for everybody here soon enough.”
Dickerson noted that even though he knows the 77 team got “super lucky” Sunday, it also didn’t happen by accident.
“It’s a big deal to win a Cup Series race, period,” Dickerson said. “No matter where you do it, no matter how it happened. It’s a thing where if we’re going to take advantage of this moment, we’ll be back and we’ll show the world what we’re trying to do. We just don’t have a fast forward button. Hopefully, we’ll have plenty of these moments. If everyone can just be patient … we’ll show you what we’re trying to do. It was just a little sudden.”
Overall, Dickerson and the team are well aware starting a new organization is extremely difficult and one victory isn’t going to build Rome in a day. Still, they have confidence in the direction NASCAR is taking in years to come — both in the Generation 7 car and the business model.
“It’s a significant undertaking, it’s obviously a big risk,” Dickerson said. “I think that risk is also kind of tempered with, we believe in the sport. We believe in what the France family is doing.”
After unique — and crazy — pack racing at Daytona International Speedway, the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) returns to a more familiar setup with Kentucky Speedway’s 1.5-mile layout.
The Monster Energy Series has already visited six 1.5-mile racetracks, the last three of which were run at night. Kansas Speedway was scheduled as a traditional night race, while the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway started around 6 p.m. ET but finished under the lights. The race ran at Chicagoland Speedway two weeks ago was scheduled to be a day race, but rain pushed the green flag back to approximately 6:30 p.m. ET.
This is important because the cars drive differently in the heat of the day compared to the cooler night temperatures.
And with Saturday’s race at Kentucky also scheduled for an evening start, we can lean on those past three night races to make our NASCAR Props Challenge picks for the Quaker State 400.
1. Only three active drivers have won a Cup race at Kentucky. Will we see a first-time Kentucky winner this weekend? Yes or No?
Based on betting odds, this is surprisingly close, but when there is not a clear edge, I’ll always lean toward the field against just three drivers.
Pick: Yes
2. O/U 18.5 lead changes?
In eight races at Kentucky, 2011 was the only event that finished with more than 17 lead changes.
Pick: Under
3. Which former Kentucky winner will finish higher? Kyle Busch or Martin Truex Jr.?
While Truex and Busch have put up similar numbers — in terms of average running position and fast laps — at Kansas, Charlotte and Chicago this season, I’ll go with Truex as the two-time defending race winner.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. – The NASCAR Throwback weekend at Darlington Raceway has become one of the most highly regarded events on the schedule. From the retro schemes honoring those who left their mark on the sport to the retro mustaches, it’s truthfully an all-around walk back in time.
Corey LaJoie and Go Fas Racing (GFR) will travel back to the year of 1991 to honor 1999 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Dale Jarrett. LaJoie’s GFR Ford will mimic the Nestle Crunch scheme Jarrett powered in the then-Busch Grand National Series in 1991.
The 43-time NASCAR national series winner took the blue and white scheme to Victory Lane five times during the sponsor’s tenure, with two of those victories coming at Darlington. The scheme also made appearances in Victory Lane at Bristol Motor Speedway, Charlotte Motor Speedway and Rockingham Speedway.
In conjunction with his victorious efforts at Darlington in NASCAR’s second-tier series, Jarrett boasts three wins in the Cup Series at the track “Too Tough to Tame.”
It’s also fitting that the 2014 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee wheeled the No. 32 while driving the Crunch scheme just as LaJoie currently races the same number in NASCAR’s premier division. While Jarrett only drove the number in the Xfinity Series, the North Carolina native’s resume also includes a trio of Daytona 500 wins coming in 1993, 1996 and 2000.
LaJoie is proud to honor such a remarkable driver and his outstanding achievements in our sport.
“The car looks great and I’ve always been a fan of Dale, so to carry this scheme around Darlington is awesome,” LaJoie said. “I think we did a great job keeping the scheme as close to the original as possible while incorporating the CorvetteParts.net logos into it. I can’t thank Tom and TJ Keen enough for allowing us to run this design – it’s one of my favorite schemes. I might even have to shave myself a mustache so I don’t do the car a disservice.”
The Crunch-inspired scheme will flaunt longtime GFR partner, Keen Parts/CorvetteParts.net. Whether you’re looking for a complete interior for your vintage ’58 Corvette or a performance accessory for your ’09, they have the Corvette part you need and the expertise you want as Corvettes are their sole focus.
Join us as we venture back in time Labor Day weekend at the 1.366-mile South Carolina track. NBCSN will carry coverage of the crown-jewel Southern 500 on Sunday, Sept. 1, at 6:00 p.m. ET.
Editor’s note: The following article was written by Team Penske driver Brad Keselowski.
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After I won at Kansas back in May — my 30th career Cup victory — a few different reporters asked me what reaching that milestone meant, and whether or not I felt it was a threshold for eventually making it into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The win was a big deal to me, to be sure, and while those questions were definitely premature in my mind, they also really got me thinking.
What does make someone worthy of being in the Hall of Fame?
I’ve had this debate with some members of the Hall of Fame voting panel over the years — a collection of some 50-odd people that includes Hall of Fame board members, NASCAR members, former champions and some media members, too. It’s always an interesting conversation for a number of reasons.
First, there’s no consensus among the people who vote about what makes somebody a Hall of Famer, which I think is kind of funny. Second, every year there are one or two surprises who get in that shock you, and one or two people where you scratch your head and wonder, “Wow. How are they not in?” It almost baffles you.
Today, I want to bring that conversation to you. I’m going to share my own criteria for what makes someone a Hall of Famer, and then open the conversation to the entire NASCAR fan community, too.
Some amazing representatives of our sport were inducted in the 2019 Hall of Fame class: Jeff Gordon, Jack Roush, Roger Penske, Davey Allison and Alan Kulwicki. And while without question, every one of those people deserves a spot in the Hall, they’re also a great segue to my first point.
I don’t think that five people should be entered into the Hall every year.
Todd Warshaw | Getty Images
When it was first created about a decade ago, it made sense for the first few classes to have so many members. Now it probably doesn’t. So I’d actually like to see the number of new additions to the Hall of Fame get scaled back to maybe two or three new members each year so that it remains something special.
My second top-level criteria is that I don’t think all the members of the Hall of Fame should be drivers, but they should be famous. It’s called the Hall of Fame for a reason.
There are some people who made very significant contributions to the sport, but also who were never in the limelight. Whether that’s by choice or not, that kind of nixes their eligibility for being a Hall of Famer. Part of being in the Hall of Fame is the connection you build with fans. If you made it a point to stay out of the limelight, you never really built that connection, and that should be held against you. This sport is here for the fans, and the way you build those relationships and use them to help people however you can — to entertain them, to connect with them, those things all really matter.
Don’t misunderstand me: There are people who did a lot for the sport who weren’t on center stage in the same way, and they deserve to be honored. But that’s what NASCAR’s Landmark Award — given to people who made landmark achievements in the sport outside the spotlight — is for. The Hall of Fame should be something different.
Lastly, I think that there should be some basic standards of character, too. And if you’re a person who goes on in your post-driving career and wins the Nobel Prize or has some other remarkable achievements, that should probably factor into your eligibility in a big way, without a doubt.
QUALIFICATIONS FOR A DRIVER
Naturally, because I’m a driver, people are going to ask my perspective for what makes a Hall of Fame driver. Truthfully, that’s probably where I have the most credibility.
First and foremost, you have to consider Cup race wins. Before we had the playoffs, and the Chase, and all these recent things we’ve installed, I would have said that championships should go before wins. Now I don’t feel that way. Now I feel like wins are a bigger deal than championships. So it completely flips my line of thinking. I’m sure there’s some people out there that don’t feel that way.
In fact, somebody asked me who the top 50 greatest drivers in NASCAR were, and I ranked Dale Earnhardt somewhere around No. 7 or 8. A bunch of people got mad at me about it. (I’m sure it’s about to happen again now, too.) “He’s got seven championships,” they said. “Only two other people have that. That should put him at least in the top three.”
I just don’t view it that way. As a driver, in the wins column, No. 8.
That’s a bit of a controversial opinion, because obviously he’s got a mystique to him that people value. But I feel like race wins should come before everything else, and that’s why I’ve got him where I’ve got him.
After wins, you have to consider the number of championships a driver has, and then third, the number of major victories. In NASCAR, we have about four or five indisputable majors and winning those races is important: the Daytona 500, Indianapolis, the Coca-Cola 600, the Darlington Southern 500. I put the Bristol Night Race up there, too. Winning any of those races is a really significant win as well.
Brian Lawdermilk | Getty Images
Finally, I think that drivers can do things off the track that increase their Hall of Fame attractiveness. The top thing there — and this gets back to the point about being famous — is building your relationship with the fans. Again, that should be really important. Bill Elliott won NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver 16 times. That’s got to count for something in the Hall of Fame, right? Same thing goes for Dale Jr. He didn’t win any championships, but he was a Hall of Fame driver in my mind simply because of his popularity, and what he meant to the fans.
Then of course, there’s contributions you make after you’re a race car driver. Take guys like Benny Parsons or Darrell Waltrip, who both transitioned from their driving career to a broadcasting career, and in doing so, were beloved by the fans for a long time. That’s got to count for something.
SMOKEY TIME
From the standpoint of drivers in the Hall of Fame, I think NASCAR’s done a pretty good job so far. Still, there are other people, as I mentioned at the start of this, who aren’t in the Hall of Fame, but should be. For the last few years, I’ve felt that way about Roger Penske, and I feel similarly about someone like Joe Gibbs.
If I had to pick one person who absolutely should be in the Hall of Fame and not only isn’t, but has never even been nominated, it would be Smokey Yunick.
In the 1960s, Smokey Yunick was basically like Elon Musk. He was an innovator — not just in NASCAR, but in a wide range of scientific endeavors, experiments, sort of a crazy scientist but in a good way. He created the first vehicle to go 80 to 100 miles on a gallon of gas, and this was in the 1970s. He created all kinds of inventions that are used today in the automotive landscape and beyond.
RacingOne
He also loved racing. Racing was partially what pushed him to create some of these inventions. It also made him the guy you wanted to drive for because you knew, without a doubt, he would have one of the best cars. All the elite drivers came to him. He was famous, and not just in stock racing circles. He built cars for the Indianapolis 500. He built cars for the Big Three, test cars, prototype cars.
In his day, he was a superstar.
He also had a very tumultuous relationship with NASCAR. He pushed the limits of legalities a lot of times, and NASCAR frowned upon that and was very harsh to him. In return, he told them what he thought about that in a not-so-nice way, and more than once walked away from the sport. In the end, they broke up in not-so-favorable terms.
But his impact on the sport was undeniable, and still felt to this day. He was a legend. I, for one, would like to see him get his due in the Hall.
THE DEBATE BEGINS
So those are my thoughts on what makes a Hall of Famer. What do you think? What are your criteria? Who should be in the Hall of Fame but isn’t? Who’s driving today that should be one day?
I’d like to know what you think. Share your ideas and opinions with me on social media, at @keselowski on Twitter, @BradKeselowski on Facebook and @BradKeselowski on Instagram.
As one daddy’s little girl grows up, another is soon to be born.
Brad and Paige Keselowski will be giving their first daughter, Scarlett, a baby sister. The family announced its news on social media Monday with a gender reveal video. Surrounded by friends and family, presumably, the Keselowskis lit off fireworks that ended up bursting pink in the night sky rather than blue, very much so fitting this past weekend’s Fourth of July theme.
That means the driver of the No. 2 Team Penske Ford is going to be outnumbered three-to-one in the Keselowski household come December, a due date he has previously mentioned.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The waiting was the hardest part for Justin Haley, who stood on pit road with his umbrella blown inside-out doing a rarely seen activity: Cheering on worsening weather.
“I can’t even see the cars. There’s fog. … Is that a spiral over there?” Haley said as he watched the shifting cloud formations. “It’s a tornado. There’s a waterspout on Lake Lloyd!”
Such creative license with the meteorological conditions ultimately wasn’t needed. The 20-year-old Haley became one of NASCAR’s youngest winners at Daytona International Speedway shortly after a drenching downpour halted the Coke Zero Sugar 400 with his Spire Motorsports No. 77 Chevrolet out front.
A bold pit-road gambit to stay out put Haley & Co. in that position. All that was left was an agonizing wait — one that came some 22 hours after the race’s scheduled start time — to realize a lifelong dream in just his third Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race.
Though his demeanor gave off the appearance of a cool, collected handling of the delay, inside, Haley was anything but. He and the other drivers had loaded back into their cars anticipating the race to resume with 33 laps remaining, but just as quickly, they went back to scrambling for shelter as the weather threw one last curve into the weekend.
Haley did his best to roll with the plot twists. The Xfinity Series regular was composed for the cameras, though he admitted that his stomach was doing loops. His hands trembled as though frostbitten.
“I can’t do much about it,” Haley said. “There’s just a lot of stuff going on. I’m just a dirt racer from Indiana, so there’s a lot of stuff going on.”
His mother, Melissa Dennis, faced similar bundled-up nerves, but found a constructive distraction.
“I went to the (motor)coach and started cleaning because the more I thought about it, the more the rain stopped,” Dennis said. “So I just separated myself from what was going on outside the coach and busied myself. My crew — my brothers and my husband — just kind of take on the worrying. Just every lightning strike, there was another update and then every rain drop, are they getting bigger? We just watched and prayed, and thankfully I thought the power of prayer brought us here.”
Just how long a wait was it for her? “It’s clean. It’s spotless,” Dennis said. “The dog went for a walk.”
Haley still had his doubts as he waited out the rain in the driver meeting room, even though the signs were starting to appear. Daytona International Speedway president Chip Wile and other dignitaries arrived in the moments before the race was deemed official, and the alternate Victory Lane was quickly assembled.
At 5:30 p.m. ET, the wait was finally over.
“I don’t know how long the rain delay was,” said No. 77 crew chief Peter Sospenzo. “Had to be like, what, two hours? Yeah, felt like 20 days.”
Two hours, two days or 20 days, it was worth waiting for.
“It was up and down because we were back in the car and ready to fire them back up and then the rain came,” Haley said. “And the rest is history.”
The race-winning No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro has passed post-race technical inspection at Daytona International Speedway, making Justin Haley’s first career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race victory official.
The No. 77 Chevy was found to be compliant with the 2019 NASCAR Rule Book after Sunday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400. With post-race teardown complete, the race results are official.
The post-race process is part of a new, more timely approach to inspection for all three NASCAR national series. Competition officials announced in February that thorough post-race inspections would take place shortly after the checkered flag at the track instead of midweek at the NASCAR Research & Development Center in Concord, North Carolina.
Those inspections come with a stiffer deterrence structure that includes disqualification for significant rules infractions — “a total culture change,” according to Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer. In the past, race-winning teams found in violation of the rules were penalized with post-race fines, points deductions and/or suspensions, but victories were allowed to stand.
Competition officials introduced the quicker post-race inspection timetable in an effort to make the results official on race day, aiming for a 90-minute target time frame to complete their scrutineering. The new post-race inspection process was also designed to deal with potential violations more promptly, avoiding any midweek news that might cloud the previous week’s results or the build-up to the following week’s event.
NASCAR will still inspect cars and parts at the R&D Center for trends as needed, but the more comprehensive at-track inspection will take priority.
The first NASCAR national-series organization to run afoul of the new inspection system was Niece Motorsports, which absorbed a disqualification on June 16, stripping Ross Chastain’s No. 44 of an apparent Gander Outdoors Truck Series victory at Iowa Speedway. The first-finishing Niece truck failed to meet the minimum ride height, an infraction that was upheld after an appeal.
According to NASCAR statistical archives, the last time a premier series driver was disqualified occurred in 1973, when early retiree Buddy Baker was demoted to last place in the National 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The last time an apparent race winner in NASCAR’s top division was disqualified came on April 17, 1960, when Emanuel Zervakis’ victory at Wilson (N.C.) Speedway was thrown out because of an oversized fuel tank on his No. 85 Chevrolet.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Kurt Busch’s chances for victory on a topsy-turvy Sunday at Daytona International Speedway disappeared in a flash of lightning and a split-second decision that ended his hopes.
“I was just on the wrong side of a lightning bolt there,” Busch said after taking 10th place. “Judgment call.”
Busch and his Chip Ganassi Racing No. 1 Chevrolet team opted against pitting immediately after the Coke Zero Sugar 400’s biggest crash, grabbing the lead in hopes of snatching away a rain-shortened victory with stormy weather brewing. Once it appeared the race would resume after officials gave the one-to-go signal with 33 laps remaining, Busch hit pit road for service with second-place Landon Cassill following suit.
Within seconds of that decision, race control waived off the call for a restart when a lightning strike was reported within an 8-mile radius of the track. That forced a red flag that left Justin Haley as the leader and eventual winner after the erratic weather conditions worsened.
“Well, we couldn’t make it, you know what I mean?,” said crew chief Matt McCall, noting the No. 1 team’s status on fuel. “You wouldn’t think you would throw one to go if you weren’t going back green. We came here to race for the win and not racing for rain. It’s easy in hindsight to stay out, right?”
Busch had already had an eventful Stage 2 before the race had reached that point. He made contact with Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s No. 17 Ford on Lap 59, then sustained minor damage 16 laps later with a wall scrape and contact with Brendan Gaughan’s No. 62.
Busch received the free pass to return to the lead lap at the Stage 2 break, then sidestepped the 18-car incident that set the stage for the team’s fateful decision.
“Yeah, I think we did pretty good to finish 10th considering everything that went on,” Busch conceded.
By then, the weather that hampered the race’s originally scheduled Saturday night start had kept teams on high alert for the shifting radar and storm warnings Sunday afternoon. It figured into the scheduling and ultimately the strategy.
“The lightning thing is hard to judge,” McCall said. “I think that’s probably what the biggest thing was there. The only thing you can do in the situation we were in was to wait as long as you could. In hindsight, it’s pretty easy.”
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – As the dark clouds and lightning descended upon Daytona International Speedway Sunday afternoon, Justin Haley climbed out of his No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet feeling like it was perhaps divine intervention. He was first on the scoreboard at the time Sunday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 was red-flagged for lightning 33 laps short of the intended 160-lap distance.
Two hours and 12 minutes later, the 20-year old Indiana native was celebrating his first career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup win – in only his third career start. It was an unlikely turn of events in a very eventful race.
As Haley stood speaking with reporters during the long weather delay, a team member walked up and hugged him, delivering the career-defining news to the Xfinity Series standout: “You just won your first Monster Energy NASCAR race.”
“It’s absolutely a blessing, pretty incredible that I have so many people around me who have given me this opportunity,” Haley said, just before receiving a hug from his mother, Melissa Dennis.
“I knew eventually we’d be standing there and celebrating a win, but I was definitely not prepared on his third Cup start to be here and experience this,” Dennis said, beaming with pride and conceding she nervously spent the red flag downtime cleaning the family’s motor coach just to keep her mind busy.
As Haley – the second-youngest Cup winner in Daytona International Speedway history – stood inside the driver meeting room during the weather delay, he smiled nervously and showed reporters how his hands were shaking in tense anticipation.
Drivers were actually called to their cars to restart after the initial red flag, but lightning moved into the immediate area again – necessitating another 30-minute safety delay. Before that time passed, the rain returned. And the race was declared official.
In the end, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet teammates William Byron and Jimmie Johnson finished second and third, respectively. And Ty Dillon and Ryan Newman rounded out the top-five.
As elated as Haley was by the unforeseen circumstances, the 2017 Daytona 500 winner Kurt Busch was equally as gutted. He had been leading the race during the yellow flag caution period immediately preceding the red flag stoppage. He had opted not to pit initially with the poor weather approaching, but when given the one-to-go signal prior to the restart, Busch zipped down pit road for a last-minute fill-up.
Unfortunately for Busch, however, the weather conditions changed so quickly that by the time the field was on the backstretch, NASCAR decided to keep the yellow caution flag flying instead of dropping the green flag to race again. Within minutes, the red flag came out, and teams were ordered to pit road, their cars covered with the bad weather approaching. Busch had rejoined the field in 10th place – his ultimate finishing position.
That was only one chapter of the race’s fully dramatic story.
The who-and-when of pit stops became especially strategic after a caution flag on Lap 120 of the scheduled 160-lapper. The “Big One,” as multi-car accidents are called on the Daytona high banks, occurred when the front-running cars of Austin Dillon and Clint Bowyer touched at high speed in Turn 1. In all, 18 cars were collected – most of them considered pre-race favorites such as polesitter Joey Logano, Hendrick Motorsports cars Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman and all four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin and defending race winner Erik Jones.
Asked what happened, Bowyer said in his typically candid fashion, “I guess he didn’t want me to pass him.
“I don’t know,” Bowyer said of Dillon. “I got under him and he blocked and we got together, I got off of him, moved down and got off of him – and here he comes back down even more and just finally wrecked us all.”
Even though their competitive hopes were finished in that accident, Logano (41 laps) and Dillon (46 laps) led the most laps on the afternoon. The time up front was especially impressive for the polesitter and Stage 1 winner Logano, who was involved in two accidents to varying degrees. But he still rallied to finish 25th.
As the series heads to Kentucky Speedway next week, Logano still maintains an 18-point lead over 14th-place finisher Kyle Busch in the Cup championship standings.
The first major incident of the afternoon ironically involved one of the two cars also part of the only practice wreck leading into the race. Only this time, it was Brad Keselowski’s No. 2 Team Penske Ford that got the rough end of contact.
On Lap 83, his Ford was hit from behind by fellow Ford driver Kevin Harvick’s No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, sending Keselowski hard into the high side wall and multiple cars spinning off track in reaction. Ultimately, Keselowski retired his car, Harvick returned after multiple pit stops to repair damage as did his SHR teammate Daniel Suarez, who spun off the track with Richard Childress Racing rookie Daniel Hemric – the lone Chevy involved in the incident.
Shortly after the dark skies started creeping in, the race intensity increased accordingly.
All the teams were keeping an eye on the sky, and Haley’s veteran crew chief Peter Sospenzo conceded that the game plan was absolutely to keep Haley on track and not stopping in the pits.
“My thought process was even if we had four flat tires we weren’t going to pit,” Sospenzo said. “We were going to ride out the weather. It was our only option to steal a win, if you want to call it that. We were not going to come in, and I was actually a little surprised a couple guys in front of us did.
“We just wanted to have a decent finish,” he added, “not get caught up in any wrecks, and it just worked out.”
