{"id":27718,"date":"2021-02-10T09:42:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T14:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/?p=27718"},"modified":"2021-02-11T09:43:53","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T14:43:53","slug":"its-busch-in-the-busch-clash-kyle-wins-on-daytona-road-course-after-elliott-blaney-collide-coming-to-checkered-flag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/2021\/02\/its-busch-in-the-busch-clash-kyle-wins-on-daytona-road-course-after-elliott-blaney-collide-coming-to-checkered-flag\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Busch in the Busch Clash! Kyle Wins on DAYTONA Road Course After Elliott, Blaney Collide Coming to Checkered Flag"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Feb. 9, 2021) \u2013 <\/strong>Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch may carry the nickname \u201cRowdy\u201d but it was a couple of his competitors acting that way that allowed him to move into the lead out of the final turn and earn his second career Busch Clash victory Tuesday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Busch\u2019s No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota led only the length of a football field en route to the checkered flag \u2013 the only time he was out front all night at the exciting 14-turn Daytona International Speedway Road Course. But it was enough \u2013 earning the former champion his first victory with new crew chief, Ben Beshore, in the annual non-points exhibition that kicks off Daytona Speedweeks Presented by AdventHealth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Race runner-up Chase Elliott had been fighting with then-race leader Ryan Blaney for the lead as the cars went into the final sequence of turns \u2013 called the bus stop. They collided. Blaney\u2019s pole-sitting No. 12 Ford hit the wall. Elliott was able to recover enough to head to the finish line but Busch had already gotten around them both to take a .765-second victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Joey Logano, Tyler Reddick and William Byron rounded out the top five. Denny Hamlin, who led a race best 21 of the 35 laps, finished sixth, unable to make his way back to the front after a late race pit stop. Alex Bowman, Erik Jones, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Matt DiBenedetto rounded out the top 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI kinda felt like there was an interesting opportunity that was developing there,” Busch said of the Blaney-Elliott situation, adding \u201cWhen that started happening I was hoping they would wreck long enough I could get up there and get by them and win the thing. It\u2019s never over until it\u2019s over in these kind of things.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Elliott, who won the last four NASCAR Cup Series road course events, and Blaney spoke about \u201cgoing for the win\u201d on that final series of turns. They are close friends off track and said that won\u2019t change despite the competitive run for Tuesday\u2019s trophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had a conversation on pit road after climbing out of their cars and then came to the infield media center at the same time as well for post-race interviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blaney said he was surprised Elliott was able to even make the race as close as it was, considering Blaney\u2019s Ford had fresher tires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hate it happened too, it didn\u2019t work out for either of us,” said Blaney, who started from the pole position and ultimately ended up 13th. \u201cWe were just racing hard and I had a little bit fresher tires there. We saved a set [of tires] and got back to second there. His car was really good, I had to use up a lot to get to him. I tried to protect and drove into that last corner really deep to make sure I didn\u2019t get dive-bombed like that. But we just came together.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOf course he didn\u2019t mean to wreck me, but I ended up wrecked,” Blaney said later, in the post-race media conference. \u201cI told him if you\u2019re going to make a move like that, at least win the race.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elliott, the reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion, was apologetic for the hard contact \u2013 especially because it cost them both a victory. But he said he would do it again to win a race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNeither one of us won, that\u2019s the big one,” Elliott said. \u201cI was close enough to drive it in there. I feel like I\u2019d be mad at myself for not at least trying. Obviously, I don\u2019t mean to wreck anybody, especially him \u2013 some guys I wouldn\u2019t mind, but he\u2019s not one of them. Hopefully he\u2019s not too mad at me. I feel like you have to go for it in an event like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can\u2019t be sorry about going for the win, but certainly didn\u2019t mean to wreck him.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speedweeks continues Tuesday evening with DAYTONA 500 Qualifying Presented By Kroger at 7:00 p.m., which can be seen on FS1 and heard on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90. Tickets for Speedweeks Presented By AdventHealth events, excluding the DAYTONA 500, are still available as children 12 and under are FREE in the 100 level seating and $10 in all other reserved seating. Tickets start at $49 for adults for Thursday\u2019s Bluegreen Vacations Duel At DAYTONA, Friday\u2019s Nextera Energy 250 and Saturday\u2019s doubleheader featuring the Beef. It\u2019s What\u2019s For Dinner. \u00ae<\/sup> 300 for the NASCAR Xfinity Series and the Lucas Oil 200 Driven by General Tire for the ARCA Menards Series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For information and a complete schedule of all racing events as part of Speedweeks, log onto www.DAYTONA500.com<\/a> or call 1-800-PITSHOP. Tickets are also available for the track\u2019s tripleheader weekend on the DAYTONA Road course (Feb. 19-21), featuring NASCAR\u2019s top three national series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Feb. 9, 2021) \u2013 Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch may carry the nickname \u201cRowdy\u201d but it was a couple of his competitors acting that way that allowed him to move into the lead out of the final turn and earn his second career Busch Clash victory Tuesday night. Busch\u2019s No. 18 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","category-touring-series-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27719,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27718\/revisions\/27719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/16\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}