 |
| Logan Riley/Getty Images |
Ryan Blaney has won tonight’s NASCAR Cup Series “Coke Zero Sugar” 400, after what was an extremely eventful race under the lights at Daytona International Speedway. Blaney’s first ever multi-victory season continues with 3rd win, building a 2 week winning streak for the No. 12 team.
Coming into the “Coke Zero Sugar” 400 at Daytona International Speedway, we knew a few things about what this race could entail. For starters, this race sat on the schedule as the regular season finale, meaning drivers like Tyler Reddick, Austin Dillon, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chris Buescher, Matt DiBenedetto, Bubba Wallace and more would all be very hungry for a win, trying to steal the final playoff spot. The second detail we knew about this race was that the race cars would see a reduction in horsepower compared to years past and the car’s spoilers would lose the wicker bill. Both of these changes came in response to Joey Logano’s scary wreck at Talladega earlier this Spring. Even though we knew all of this information, what we didn’t know is exactly how it would impact the racing.
Well, this race turned out to be more than we could ever imagine. The superspeedway racing only got even closer and more dangerous. Luckily for most of the race these race car drivers drove their heart out, and avoided any major wrecks, which to me seemed miraculous considering how close the cars were and how much movement was occurring. We saw drivers like Ross Chastain, Joey Logano, Corey LaJoie, Chase Elliott, Bubba Wallace, Chris Buescher, Kevin Harvick, Austin Dillon, Denny Hamlin, William Byron, Martin Truex Jr., and Ryan Newman lead this race. Often times these drivers would lead the pack for several laps, then lose momentum and hand off the lead to somebody else for a few laps, before returning to the lead again.
Towards the end of this race we saw some extremely aggressive moves from drivers. The pushing got heavier, and cars were constantly blocking big time. This lead to a few wrecks at the end of the race. The first of these big wrecks started with Ross Chastain who was “leading” the inside line. Ross Chastain wanted to tuck behind Kevin Harvick who was stuck in a middle lane by himself. Because Kevin Harvick was stuck in the middle, he was quite slower than Ross Chastain, therefore Chastain had to slow down to catch Kevin Harvick’s No. 4 car. When Ross Chastain checked up to try and tuck behind Kevin Harvick, the plan didn’t go so well, Ross Chastain couldn’t slow down enough to fit behind the much slower No. 4 car, and this tactic caused the entire inside line to check up. While everything seemed okay, and few rows back Martin Truex Jr. got his pet of the domino effect, and checked up in front of Ricky Stenhouse Jr.. Stenhouse really had no idea the inside line was checking up and wound up giving Truex a hefty bump. That bump sent Truex towards the outside lane, T-Boning William Byron, and taking out cars like the No. 96 of Landon Cassil (who was having a really good night), the No. 14 of Chase Briscoe, the No. 38 of Anthony Alfredo, and severely damaging the No. 8 of Tyler Reddick who was just on the cutoff line.
Following that wreck fest came a whole one as Joey Logano cut a tire from the lead, and had to pit. This left Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin out front. Matt DiBenedetto came barreling to the front of the field hungry to win, but with only 3 laps to go Chase Elliot put a late block on the No. 21 of Matt DiBenedetto, and sent him into the wall, then Elliott’s No. 9 lost control making impact with the No. 21 once more. The field behind them wrecked as guys like Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Christopher Bell, and Cole Custer went flying at either retaining walls.
That wreck set up the finish, leaving Chris Buescher out front and Ryan Blaney 2nd for the final restart. As the overtime restart occurred a good push from Corey LaJoie gave Ryan Blaney the boost he needed to pull ahead of Chris Buescher. Chris Buescher hung on as multiple drivers made their way and left the front of the pack. A few drivers who got to the front were Kevin Harvick, Daniel Suárez and Kurt Busch. Harvick was running 2nd behind Ryan Blaney when Daniel Suárez and Kurt Busch worked together to get to get 3rd and 4th place respectively. Unfortunately Kurt Busch gave Daniel Suárez to heavy of a push as Suárez attempted to peak out in his No. 99 Camaro. This uneven push on the back bumper sent the No. 99 of Suárez straight into the side of Kevin Harvick and countless drivers (most of the field) wrecked behind them. Chris Buescher drive back to 2nd in the No. 17 Mustang, Bubba Wallace in the No. 23 avoided the wreck to wind up 3rd, and Ryan Newman in the No. 6 escaped to the 4th position. Moments later as the caution came out it was unclear who finished where, and who had potentially clinched the playoffs. NASCAR confirmed the Top-15 finishers, and also confirmed that Tyler Reddick while receiving heavy damage out ran his teammate Austin Dillon and made it into the playoffs. Chris Buescher who had undoubtedly one of the greatest races of his Cup Series career was unfortunately disqualified of his 2nd place finish due to an illegal track bar mounting assembly that was found in post race inspection.
I can honestly say I was very skeptical of this new racing package and I was fairly certain it would degrade the quality of our racing here at Daytona International Speedway, but my gut feeling was far from reality as this race put on a show that will not soon be forgotten. The racing here tonight was much better than a majority of the races I can remember in recent history, and if it was up to me I would give it the okay to run this package again.
Chase Elliott won stage 1 of this race, and Joey Logano won stage 2.
The following are the complete race results (click to enlarge):
 |
| NASCAR (Click to enlarge) |
Ryan @Blaney WINS at @Daytona as the field wrecks behind him!
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 29, 2021
Also, @TylerReddick has made the #NASCARPlayoffs for the first time in his Cup Series career. pic.twitter.com/SfoshRiqUG
IT'S THE BIG ONE!
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 29, 2021
OVERTIME IS COMING UP ON NBC. #CokeZeroSugar400 #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/l03vIcHpnU
Take another look at what happened to Martin Truex Jr., Tyler Reddick, and more.#NASCAR x #CokeZeroSugar400 x NBC pic.twitter.com/W38tCq2zSk
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 29, 2021
No comments:
Post a Comment