By John Schutt –
NASCAR Monster Energy Series, Daytona 500, Daytona International Speedway, Daytona, Fla., Sunday, Feb. 17.
With a wreck-infested third stage, Joe Gibbs driver Denny Hamlin pulled off his second Daytona 500 victory and held off teammate Kyle Busch, who took second place. In third place was Erik Jones, fourth place was Joey Logano, and in fifth place was Michael McDowell.
William Byron, Jr. started on pole with his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Alex Bowman in the outside position, both in Chevy Cameros.
The first segment was won by Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney took the victory in the second stage.
With 19 laps to go Kyle Larson had a tire blowout which caused him to spin and take some damage.
At 12 laps to go Brad Keselowski had a tire blowout on his Penski Ford.
All hell broke loose and a major wreck occurred with more than 10 cars involved and a lot of sparks under the darkened sky. The resulting damage and number of totalled race cars brought out the red flag to pick up the pieces!
Aric Almirola’ car appeared to be in the center of it all with two cars in his side, his front crumpled into another car, and two more pushing his car into the wall.
After lengthy delay the race was restarted, then on lap 191 in the 200-lap race. There were two more wrecks and race was stopped again, now with just 12 cars remaining!
Hamlin got the jump on Kyle Busch on the overtime finish and stayed there for the victory.
It started to rain and Johnson tried to pass Kyle Busch and either tapped him or took off the air which may have caused Kyle Busch to spin. Johnson got the lead and the race was called because of rain. Johnson was declared the winner with a very upset Kyle Busch further down the lineup.
The second duel was led mostly by Clint Bowyer. During the last lap Joey Logano, who was running in fourth place at the time, pulled out with help to sling shot to the lead and took the victory with Hamlin in second place.
Joe Gibbs said it was the greatest win in his career after recently losing his partner’s son to a rare disease.