'Unbelievable' crash mars Daytona 500 finish

1 year ago 66

The decision to the Daytona 500 has been marred by a bid of crashes that took retired front-running cars.

The archetypal contention of the NASCAR play was sent into overtime - wherever the contention is extended by 2 laps - by a rotation for Daniel Suarez, and past again by a monolithic pileup that took astir fractional the remaining cars retired of contention.

"That accelerated … unbelievable," erstwhile operator Clint Bowyer - who famously finished the 2007 Daytona 500 connected his extortion - said successful commentary of the crash.

"We ever accidental it, cautions breed cautions," three-time bid champion Tony Stewart, different erstwhile operator said.

This pile-up took retired seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson, who was making the archetypal of a fistful of starts for the play connected his instrumentality to Nascar pursuing a little stint successful Indycar, arsenic good arsenic crowd-favourite William Byron.

The contention was yet ended by different dense clang connected the past thigh of the 2nd effort astatine overtime arsenic Kyle Larson was spun retired successful crook 1 connected the past lap, which triggered different dense crash.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr was declared the winner.

The 2 overtime attempts saw the contention declared connected the 212th of 200 scheduled laps, making it the longest Daytona 500 successful history.

Stenhouse's triumph successful a Chevrolet for JTG Daugherty Racing — a single-car squad owned by Tad and Jodi Geschickter on with erstwhile NBA subordinate Brad Daugherty — was the 3rd of his career. JTG is the archetypal single-car squad to triumph the Daytona 500 since The Wood Brothers Racing did it with Trevor Bayne successful 2011.

Jodi Geschickter is the archetypal pistillate car proprietor to triumph the Daytona 500, portion Daugherty, who near the way earlier Sunday with an oculus irritation, the archetypal Black car proprietor to triumph the race.

Stenhouse's lone different victories came successful 2017, astatine Talladega and the summertime contention astatine Daytona.

"I deliberation this full offseason (Crew Chief Mike Kelly) conscionable preached however overmuch we each believed successful each other. They near maine a enactment successful the car that said they judge successful maine and to spell get the occupation done," Stenhouse said.

"Man, this is unbelievable. This was the tract of my past triumph backmost successful 2017. We've worked truly hard. We had a mates shots past twelvemonth to get a triumph and fell short.

"It was a pugnacious season, but man, we got it done, Daytona 500."

Kyle Larson was collected successful the race-ending clang aft helium jumped retired of enactment excessively aboriginal successful an effort to triumph the race. His disappointment was alleviated by Stenhouse's victory.

"Happy that Ricky won. I'm ace happy. That's each I could deliberation astir aft I crashed, waiting to perceive that helium won," Larson said.

"He's 1 of my champion friends, truthful I was similar yelling into my helmet erstwhile I helped propulsion him to the pb there. I was hoping it was going to enactment greenish truthful it would person been maine oregon him win.

"I can't hold to spell get changed and spell springiness him a large hug due to the fact that helium is 1 of my large buddies."

Reigning Cup champion Joey Logano finished 2nd successful a Ford for Team Penske, which won the contention past twelvemonth with Austin Cindric.

Action sports prima Travis Pastrana finished 11th successful his Daytona 500 debut, and Kevin Harvick was 12th successful his last Daytona 500. Harvick is retiring astatine the extremity of the year.

-- With Damien McCartney

For a regular dose of the champion of the breaking quality and exclusive contented from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!