AUDIO/RECAP: Double Down; David Comstock and Joey Gattina Win Full Throttle Duels at Daytona

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Report by Race Chaser Online Managing Editor Jacob Seelman — Johnathon Caddell photo —

In racing, luck is what you get when preparation meets opportunity.

Monday night at Daytona International Speedway, David Comstock and Joey Gattina were the recipients of a lot of luck and a big celebration.

The duo made it to the front of their respective 25-car fields and scored the victories in the 30-lap Full Throttle Duels, the qualifying races for next week’s =RSR= Full Throttle Cup Series season-opening Daytona 250.

Comstock won the first Duel when the caution came out with three to go, freezing the field after the No. 14 Monster Energy Chevrolet wrested the lead from polesitter Chad Coleman for the final time. Comstock led 18 of the race’s 30 laps and by virtue of his Duel win, will start third in next Monday’s 250.

“Other than messing up qualifying, it’s a really good start to our Speedweeks,” Comstock said in Gatorade Victory Lane. “I’m excited to run the 250; we’ve got a new number on the side of the car (14) so a couple things are different, but we’re just ready to kick the season off next week.”

“Once you can get to the front you can kind of establish yourself, because of how long it takes these cars to overheat,” Comstock said of the Daytona draft. “We did that tonight and hopefully we can do it next week too.”

In all, the first Full Throttle Duel featured five lead changes between Comstock and Coleman and two caution flags for six laps.

David Comstock won the first Full Throttle Duel under caution Monday night in =RSR= Full Throttle Cup Series competition. (Jacob Seelman photo)

In the second Duel, Joey Gattina used a push from 4Wheelz Racing teammate Scott Stenzel on a two-lap dash to the checkered flag to surge to the outside and pass Cody Byus Racing veteran Brian Macklin on the final lap for his first career =RSR= Full Throttle Cup Series victory of any kind.

“I gotta thank my teammate Scott Stenzel; a year ago I helped him here at Daytona and today he returned the favor,” Gattina said in Victory Lane. “If you thought the end of the race was wild — our drive through; Scott and I were 20th and 21st when the caution came out. At that point I wasn’t even in the show on points or provisionals.”

“But, when the caution came out and wiped out a bunch of the field there, we restarted sixth and Stenzel told me ‘You’re going to win it’. I was just content to make the race but the hole opened up, Scott pushed me through and 4Wheelz got it done tonight. This is awesome!”

The first 23 laps of Duel No. 2 were run caution-free, the longest stretch of green flag racing all night long.

Dwayne Vincent started the second Duel from the pole and led the first ten laps before the outside lane began to get a strong run and shuffled the deck. Nathan Little got door-to-door for the lead on lap eight, but a connection issue put him behind the wall and out of contention on lap nine.

Boomtown Sim/Bubbleball Racing teammates Mitch Rollo and Corbin Himstreet used a tandem draft to put Rollo to the top of the pylon on lap 11 before both Brian Macklin and Vincent took turns back at the front right at the halfway point of the event.

Macklin was not done though, shoving Mark Bratcher’s No. 38 Toyota to the point on lap 23 and allowing Bratcher to drop to the inside, but when Vincent tried to make a move just below the yellow line to get back underneath Bratcher for the top spot, the Real Deal Sim Racing driver was sent spinning in front of the entire pack, causing an 18-car crash that wiped out several top contenders including William Kempf, Shawn Breitzman and C.J. LaVair.

That crash set up the two lap dash that led to Gattina’s winning move on the final lap.

The two Full Throttle Duels set positions 3-32 in the Daytona 250 starting grid. The top 15 finishers in each duel were placed in order in the row corresponding to their Duel (Race 1 – inside row; Race 2 – outside row).

The front row was set by Garry Mercer Trucking Pole Qualifying earlier in the night — Chad Coleman (subbing for Ronnie Potts) and Dwayne Vincent were the fastest two qualifiers and earned the top two positions on the starting grid for next Monday’s season-opener.

With the Full Throttle Duels complete and the 43-car field locked for the Daytona 250, the =RSR= Full Throttle Cup Series turns its full focus to the final event of Daytona Speedweeks and the start of the 2015 points season. The Daytona 250 will air live on Monday, Feb. 23 beginning at 9 p.m. Eastern on LSRTV.

Audio with Duel No. 1 winner David Comstock: