DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. and CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Recap by Race Chaser Online Managing Editor Jacob Seelman — Robert Laberge/Getty Images North America photo —
In an exhilarating last-lap run into turn three, Ryan Reed stunned Brad Keselowski and won his first-career NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Daytona International Speedway on Saturday night.
Reed, who was shuffled out into the third groove and was running outside the top ten coming to the white flag, stormed back to the front with a shove from his Roush Fenway Racing teammate Chris Buescher and dove underneath Keselowski in turn three to take the lead, and ultimately the win, in the NXS season-opening Alert Today Florida 300.
“(This is) amazing, I can’t describe the emotions and the feelings that are (going) into this first win,” a breathless Reed said. “I mean, so much hard work and so much sacrifice by Seth, Jack, and everyone who stood behind me.”
“To be standing in Victory Lane, to be diagnosed four years ago with Type I diabetes, to have Lilly, the American Diabetes Association, Ford, Roush and everyone who stood behind me through it all (be here), and to get our first win at Daytona — get the first XFINITY win — there’s just a lot of firsts there and it’s really exciting.”
For Reed, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in February of 2011, the victory was the culmination of a dream he was told by doctors was “impossible”, and also marked Jack Roush’s first-career NXS victory as a car owner at Daytona in 76 attempts.
“I can’t say how excited I am to be here for the first. I’m going to sit down and make myself a list of all the firsts,” said Roush. “I understand it’s the first XFINITY race we won at Daytona with a car like this. So that means a lot. To be here with Ryan and Seth, XFINITY, for their first event, is just a wonderful thing.”
“The guys worked hard, but we’ve had good speedway cars for a number of years. To be able to close the deal and finish 1-2 tonight is really satisfying. It will be a happy shop in North Carolina on Monday when we’re able to celebrate this as a crew.”
Buescher hung on for second to give RFR the one-two punch at the checkered flag, and was thrilled to be able to push his teammate to victory lane after missing the Daytona opener a year ago (due to rain during qualifying).
“That’s awesome — that was an insane finish — and for our organization, this is huge,” Buescher said following the race. “I’m so proud to get Ryan his first win, first off. That’s a huge accomplishment. To do it here, I’m extremely happy for him and was glad to play a part in it.”
“This is one of those places where things get crazy at the end and we were able to weed through it. It was close. It wasn’t due to anyone else’s lack of trying. It was just a wild finish.”
Ty Dillon charged late to come home third after leading 16 laps total on the afternoon.
“All day yesterday I knew we had an awesome race car, and all day we did,” Dillon said. “It’s part of being at Daytona, you go from the front to the back, front to the back. (I) thought we had some help at the end to try to win the thing. (But) everybody dumped me.”
“Coming to the white when they all crashed, I was able to stay in it. Proud of our effort today.”
Ty’s brother Austin finished fourth, with Keselowski sliding all the way back to fifth at the final flag.
“I think something happened to the 98 car (Aric Almirola) exiting turn two and it just pulled a huge gap on the field,” Keselowski explained. “I couldn’t react fast enough to stay with the field and I drove away from them. It just rubber-banded back on us and the 16 and 60 got a great run with some really smart drafting. It was just the way the cards were dealt — we’ve come to Daytona the last four or five years, led a bunch of laps and been leading towards the end and just not been able to finish it out. Today was (more of) the same.
The opening of the race was highly competitive and entertaining, with an 80-lap run of green flag action to start the day and 19 lead changes between seven different drivers across the first 200 miles.
Austin Dillon led the opening lap in his No. 33 Rheem Chevrolet and Buescher also led several circuits early before a power pair would fight to the front and put on a show.
Ty Dillon (inside) and Darrell Wallace Jr. (outside) battled to the front of their respective lines and put on a tug-of-war showdown for the top spot from lap 8 to lap 41, swapping the top spot between each other 14 times in 33 laps — including a green flag round of pit stops at lap 40.
Following the round of stops, Kyle Busch — the all-time XFINITY Series wins leader — got a shove from Dale Earnhardt Jr. to claim the lead and held it as the field began to single-file out behind him and ride in wait.
At halfway, Busch led Earnhardt Jr., Regan Smith, Kyle Larson and Buescher as the first 60 laps went by at an average pace of more than 185 mph.
Nine laps later, Earnhardt Jr. had to dive to pit road after his crew did not get enough fuel in the No. 88 Chevrolet, suffering both a drive-through penalty (passed through too many pit boxes) and a reported loose wheel as a result — Junior would drop all the way to the back of the top 30 and lost a lap to the lead pack.
That would allow Smith to move to the top spot just ahead of a partial round of green flag pit stops at lap 79, when Smith and teammate Chase Elliott dove down pit road and surrendered the lead to Larson. The stops would be interrupted however, when a tire got away from the Chris Cockrum crew and drew the first caution of the day for debris.
When all of the cars that had not yet pitted came down for service, Smith reassumed the lead for the first restart of the day with 35 laps to go, but three laps later, Reed would roar to the high side to take the lead at lap 88.
Reed and Larson would battle for the top spot for the next five laps as Larson worked up the outside lane, but when Larson got to the back bumper of the lapped car of Daniel Suarez, Suarez went spinning down the track into the pack, starting a multi-car melee and clipping the No. 7 of Smith, who rolled over through the tri-oval before coming to a stop.
“I’m fine, but I hope I didn’t send Maggie (wife) into labor today — that was not my intention,” Smith quipped after exiting the infield care center. “We had a fast car, it was doing everything I wanted it to do. On that restart we just got down in front of Chase and couldn’t go as well with him behind me as I was going with some others earlier.”
“I saw the 18 (Suarez) wrecking, and then wrecking again, and then wrecking a third time and there was really nowhere I could go coming off the corner. It’s unfortunate — I don’t know if he got help from behind but I do know he was two laps down. In that situation … it probably would have been cool (for him) to hang out in the back of the pack and let us race the way that we were racing. I’ll talk to him and see what the deal was and we’ll go on to Atlanta.”
In addition to Smith, Brendan Gaughan, Ryan Sieg, Scott Lagasse, John Wes Townley, Chad Boat, Justin Marks and Elliott were also collected or received some sort of damage in the incident — which necessitated a 24 minute, 45 second red flag for clean-up.
Coming to the stoppage, Mike Wallace — who was having radio issues — could not hear his spotter telling him to slow down and piledrove the back end of Austin Dillon’s machine.
“Oh my gosh, that scared the crap out of me,” Dillon said over the radio. “I went about five feet in the air and 100 feet down the way there.”
Elliott’s damage would require extensive repair on pit road and drew a caution on lap 103 when a chunk of tape from his front fender came off onto the race track.
The Fords were on the charge following a restart with 14 laps to go, when Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher jumped to the top two spots and led the field into the final ten lap dash.
That dash would be stalled though, by a second vicious crash with nine laps to go — sparked when Kyle Busch gave Erik Jones a push through the tri-oval and Jones went spinning up the track into traffic. While cars crashed around him, Busch went sailing into a concrete wall past the exit of pit road that destroyed his Monster Energy Toyota.
Busch was assisted by safety crews out of the car, and was taken to Halifax Medical Center complaining of pain in his right leg. The
The crash also collected Brian Scott, Gaughan, Elliott Sadler, JJ Yeley and others, and also officially ended defending series champion Chase Elliott’s day — marking the Dawsonville, Georgia driver’s first-career DNF in XFINITY competition.
That crash set up a five lap dash to the finish and saw furious racing led by Keselowski and Buescher. Keselowski led all the way from the restart to the white flag, but when Almirola and Larson got racing headed for turn one, Larson spun and took Ross Chastain with him down into the turn one grass.
The two had been running second and third at the time, which opened the gap that stalled Keselowski out and allowed Reed to drive to the win.
The NASCAR XFINITY Series heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday, February 28 for race number two of their 2015 season, the Hisense 250. The event will be part of a same-day doubleheader with the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, and the green flag will drop just after 2 p.m. Eastern.
RESULTS: NASCAR XFINITY Series; Alert Today Florida 300; Daytona International Speedway; Feb. 21, 2015
- Ryan Reed
- Chris Buescher
- Ty Dillon
- Austin Dillon
- Brad Keselowski
- David Starr
- Aric Almirola
- Kyle Larson
- Ross Chastain
- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- Dakoda Armstrong
- Darrell Wallace Jr.
- Mike Wallace
- Jeremy Clements
- Mario Gosselin
- Jeffrey Earnhardt
- Eric McClure
- Erik Jones
- Elliott Sadler
- Blake Koch
- Chris Cockrum
- Derek White
- Josh Reaume
- Mike Harmon
- Brian Scott
- Kyle Busch
- J.J. Yeley
- Chase Elliott
- Brendan Gaughan
- Cale Conley
- Landon Cassill
- Joey Gase
- John Wes Townley
- Justin Marks
- Regan Smith
- Chad Boat
- Scott Lagasse Jr.
- Ryan Sieg
- Daniel Suarez
- Dexter Bean
