DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Recap by Race Chaser Online Managing Editor Jacob Seelman — Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images for NASCAR photo —
Sunday’s 58th running of the Daytona 500 appears to be setting up as a clash of the titans: Joe Gibbs Racing vs. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
While Junior made easy work out of the first Can-Am Duel at Daytona earlier in the night, the second Duel was largely up in the air (albeit largely between three JGR teammates) until the final lap, when chaos broke loose and drastically altered the picture entering ‘The Great American Race’.
After Casey Mears ran out of fuel with a lap and a half to go, race leader Kyle Busch was left alone nearly 10 car lengths in front of the field — allowing Chevrolet stablemates Jamie McMurray and Jimmie Johnson to close with a big run entering turn one at the white flag. McMurray went to the bottom to try and pass Busch for the lead, but the reigning Sprint Cup champion through the block and forced McMurray to try a move back to the high side.
However, third-running Johnson was there.
McMurray’s right-rear quarter appeared to make the slighest of contact with Johnson’s left front fender, getting the six-time champion loose entering turn one. Johnson smacked the outside SAFER Barrier and came down the track into traffic before being forced back up nose-first into the wall for a second time. As he crashed, Martin Truex Jr., A.J. Allmendinger and 500 outside polesitter Matt Kenseth piled in with nowhere to go, seeing all four cars demolished in a steaming heap at the base of turn two when all was said and done.
Meanwhile, Busch cruised to the combined caution and checkered flags to notch his third-career Duel victory and the ninth all-time for JGR.
“It was pretty quiet and calm, for the most part … until the last lap, anyways,” said Busch, who led a race-high 35 laps. “That’s when it got kind of crazy [in the rear-view mirror].”
“We had a great car. Props to Joe Gibbs Racing for a phenomenal job this winter … building pieces for us to come down here and have some fun. I’m looking forward to starting the Daytona 500 from the fourth spot — even though I’ll probably end up moving into the front row now that Matt got caught up in that mess and tore up his car. Either way though, it’s a lot of fun to win these things. It doesn’t really mean a whole lot [in terms of points], but it’s a good feeling for all the guys back at the shop that put a lot of effort into this whole deal.”
Busch admitted he “had a plan”, but the rest of the field didn’t stay true to form.
“My plan was to just have everybody stay single file and we take the checkered flag — but they didn’t see the same thing I did. They started jockeying for position. I guess the 13 (Mears) ran out of gas and got things mixed up a little bit more, which pulled the pack off of me and gave me a huge lead. When that happened, I thought I was a sitting duck; I knew was going to get freight trained by those guys when they caught back up to me.
“They started gaining on me so slow, it wasn’t happening as fast as I expected it to. When they got close to me, that’s when the big gap closed. When they sucked up on me, it shocked me it was so late. By then they didn’t have enough of a run to make a move. I was able to protect that spot, still, coming to the line for the white — and after that, I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if McMurray was dragging the brake to get another run on me, but Jimmie [got] to his side. When they started crashing in my mirror, at that point I knew it was over.”
McMurray was able to right his car and cross the line in second, but didn’t feel that he had actually made contact with Johnson to initiate the crash — that the disturbance in the air between their two Chevys was at fault, instead.
“When you look at the replay — I didn’t think the 48 (of Johnson) was going to have enough of a run [to get side-by-side] … but I stalled out when I got to the 18. I never felt him touch me so I don’t know if it was just a disturbance in the air of my car coming up (the track) for him to lose it like that. There wasn’t a mark on my car, so I’m really not sure.”
Kenseth dominated the opening stages of the 60 lap affair from the pole, leading the first 23 laps ahead of a 16-man train before picking up a piece of debris on his grill that spiked his engine temperatures. At that point, Busch dove to the bottom of the race track in turn two and single-handedly took the top spot away — leading through halfway ahead of Kenseth and fellow teammate Carl Edwards before the entire lead pack dove to pit road for service with 22 laps to go.
Aric Almirola led for two laps under the pit cycle — staying out to pit on his own — before Busch re-assumed the point on lap 40 at the conclusion of service for the field. The field would remain calm until five laps to go, when the leaders ran into lapped traffic that sent Kenseth and Johnson backwards on the bottom and into the center of the storm when the last-lap drama broke loose.
(Sean Gardner/Getty Images for NASCAR photo)
Due to the crash, Kenseth will roll off of pit road in second but have to drop to the rear of the field prior to the green flag.
“Once we got shuffled, Jason [Ratcliff, crew chief] was telling me to bail out down the frontstretch … and I was trying to find a hole to get out of there, but I just couldn’t. I saw the wreck happen a while before I got there and I was slowing down, trying to miss it but I got ran over from behind and pushed into the wreck. It’s beyond disappointing, but you gotta practice [running in the draft] at some point. It all started with the debris on the grill — I had control of the race out front, but once we got back to second it just didn’t work out from there.”
Johnson was also understandably disappointed at having a second crashed race car in a five-day span, but still remained optimistic at his chances to come back on Sunday and win his third Daytona 500.
“It’s sad to lose that car, because it was a really good one,” Johnson said. “The 1 got a run on the 18 but it didn’t pan out, and that allowed me to get up to the outside. Jamie came up to defend that and I was unfortunately outside of him.”
“I could see where it was taking us and that we were going to hook bumpers and crash, so I tried to get out of a hole and it didn’t work. At that point, I skipped off the wall and turned around in front of everyone. It was an aggressive move — sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. Just bummed out we lost a race car.”
Of note, Danica Patrick spun to avoid the crash in turns one and two — careening through the grass but not sustaining any serious damage to her No. 10 Nature’s Bakery Chevrolet.
Kurt Busch, on the other had, did sustain right side door damage in the melee, but was able to bring his car back around for a third-place finish. Edwards and Ty Dillon rounded out the top five.
Matt DiBenedetto (race finish) and Robert Richardson Jr. (qualifying speed) were the two ‘Open’ class drivers who officially cemented their Daytona 500 starting spots during Duel two, while David Gilliland and Reed Sorenson ultimately missed the field for Sunday’s 200 lap, 500 mile event.
The next action for Sprint Cup teams will be a pair of practice sessions on Friday, at 12 noon and 2 p.m. ET, respectively.
RESULTS: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series; Can-Am Duel No. 2; Daytona International Speedway; Feb. 18, 2016
- Kyle Busch
- Jamie McMurray
- Kurt Busch
- Carl Edwards
- Ty Dillon
- Kyle Larson
- Danica Patrick
- Brian Vickers
- Matt DiBenedetto (Locked in — On Finish)
- Michael Annett
- Landon Cassill
- David Gilliland
- Jimmie Johnson
- Martin Truex Jr.
- A.J. Allmendinger
- Matt Kenseth
- Casey Mears
- Robert Richardson Jr. (Locked in — On Speed)
- Aric Almirola
- Michael Waltrip
- Reed Sorenson
- Ryan Newman
About the Writer
Jacob Seelman is the Managing Editor of Race Chaser Online and creator of the Motorsports Madness radio show, airing at 7 p.m. Eastern every Monday on the Performance Motorsports Network. Seelman grew up in the sport, watching his grandparents co-own the RaDiUs Motorsports NASCAR Cup Series team in the 1990s.
The 22-year-old is currently studying Broadcast Journalism at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C., and is also serving as the full-time tour announcer for both the United Sprint Car Series and the Must See Racing Sprint Car Series.
Email Jacob at: speed77radio@gmail.com
Follow on Twitter: @Speed77Radio or @JacobSeelman77
Email Race Chaser Online: news@racechaseronline.com
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