Kurt Busch now adds a Harley J. Earl Trophy to his collection and résumé, alongside his 2004 championship, after winning the 59th running of the Daytona 500.
Cole Whitt, who opted not to pit during the final caution of the race, led the field to the final restart with 47 laps to go and promptly lost the lead to Aric Almirola, who then lost it to Kyle Larson the following lap. He had a dicey battle for the lead with Joey Logano with 38 to go. Chase Elliott, who started on the pole, powered by Logano on the outside line on the backstretch with 26 to go to retake the lead.
With 20 to go, the bottom line started dissipating and the front 12 cars formed up in a single-file train on the top line. They remained in line until Ryan Blaney broke rank and attempted to form a working bottom line with 10 to go, but there was little help from the others and he jumped back in line.
“I tried to make a move with about 10 to go and I didn’t go anywhere,” Blaney said. “We were kind of stuck. Luckily we had the 22 with us and I kind of helped him and he kind of helped me.”
On the backstretch with four to go, Elliott’s car ran out of fuel. He fell back, went on to finish 14th, and gave way to Martin Truex Jr. He also ran out the following lap and Larson took back the lead, only to run out of gas in Turn 1. Busch was in position to capitalize and scored the victory.
“There is nothing predictable about this race anymore and the more years that have gone by that I didn’t win I kept trying to go back to patterns that I had seen in the past,” Busch said in victory lane. “My mirror fell off with 30 laps to go and I couldn’t even see out the back. And I thought that was an omen. Throw caution to the wind. The more unpredictability that keeps unfolding at the Daytona 500, I predicted it. It just got crazy and wild and I am so proud of all the drivers at the end. We put on a show for a full fuel run and nobody took each other out and it was one of the smartest chess games I have seen out there. All the hard work that Ford and SHR put into this — this Ford Fusion is in Daytona’s victory lane.”
The first half of the race was light on cautions with just two in the first 105 laps and only one for a wreck. That wreck being Corey LaJoie on lap 31 when he mistimed his entry onto pit road and aborted before slamming into the back of Clint Bowyer’s car, only to slam the tri-oval wall.
The cautions, and wrecks, started adding up with a six-car wreck on lap 105 that began when Kyle Busch’s car suffered either a left or right-rear tire blowout, piled into Erik Jones and Matt Kenseth, and slammed the wall, collecting also Ty Dillon and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was leading the race when he was clipped by Busch.
This brought out the red flag for 17 minutes.
The next wreck was the Big One that started when Jamie McMurray shoved Jimmie Johnson down the backstretch. It loosened the 48 car and turned him down across the No. 6 of Trevor Bayne. This spun both of them out and sent them both pin-balling through a gaggle of cars. Fourteen cars were collected or received damage from the lap 127 wreck in Turn 3.
With 65 laps to go, Blaney signaled on the backstretch that he was coming to pit road. As he slowed down exiting Turn 4 to dive into the pits, Elliott Sadler turned up the track to avoid hitting him, only to clip Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. This sent the two Roush Fenway Racing drivers down the track and into the inside wall.
On the backstretch with 59 to go, McMurray, on the outside, tried to pass to the inside of Elliott. Elliott blocks the advance, so McMurray checks up. This gets him hooked into the wall by Brendan Gaughan. Daniel Suarez swerves to the left to avoid McMurray, takes out Ryan Newman and starts a chain reaction Big One that involved 11 cars.
The final wreck was a two-car wreck with 51 to go that started when Joey Gase was turned into the wall by Elliott. This set up the final 47 lap run to the finish.
The race lasted three hours 29 minutes and 31 seconds at an average speed of 143.187 mph. There were 37 lead changes among 18 different drivers and eight cautions for 40 laps.
Kurt Busch leaves with a 12-point lead over Blaney in the points standings.
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