Penulis
Win is 100th Glass Triumph for Group Penske
Brad Keselowski had a fabulous answer for the enormous wrecks that mixed the completing request of Saturday night's Coke Zero 400 at Daytona Global Speedway.
He stayed in front of every one of them.
Driving 115 of 161 laps in the No. 2 Group Penske Portage, Keselowski dashed far from his followers after a restart in extra minutes and posted his third triumph of the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Glass Arrangement season in altogether persuading style.
The triumph was Keselowski's first at Daytona and the twentieth of his vocation, and it strengthened his dominance of restrictor-plate dashing - Keselowski as of now had four wins at sister track Talladega.
At the point when the race restarted in extra minutes, after an alert for a four-auto wreck on lap 155, consequent runner-up Kyle Busch essentially couldn't stay aware of Keselowski, once he lost his push from third-put finisher Trevor Bayne.
Keselowski's partner, fourth-put finisher Joey Logano, pushed the No. 2 auto to the front on the Lap 160 restart, and afterward it was over.
"Joey Logano was a gigantic piece of this today," Keselowski said. "We had two awesome autos here with Group Penske and cooperated truly well. Joey has won here and he's truly an ace, particularly on that restart.
"He gave me that push I expected to get to the front, and here we are at Daytona in triumph path. I couldn't care less in the event that it's not the 500.
It's Daytona. This is immense. I cherish this spot, and here we are in triumph path with the Detroit Passage."
That there were 27 lead changes between 13 drivers gave a false representation of Keselowski's predominance.
While in the number one spot, the 2012 arrangement champion could square both within and outside paths, moving forward and backward voluntarily to obstruct the advancement of whichever line created force.
With a challenging move to within race runner-up Kyle Busch on Lap 145, Keselowski led the pack for good and held it through two ensuing alerts for multi-auto wrecks.
The initially wiped out Sonoma champ Tony Stewart, who was running in the main 10 at the time. The second was the final blow for Carl Edwards, who had qualified second however completed 25th.
Busch, who attempted futile to recover the top spot, could just respect the treatment of Keselowski's Passage.
"He unquestionably simply had far more mobility it appeared like than anyone, yet particularly than I," Busch said.
"I don't know how he got the sort of run that he got (to make the conclusive pass), however when he understood that once-over the front stretch getting into Turn 1 and could swing to the base, my auto would be somewhat free doing that.
"It would simply over pivot on me a smidgen, and I just never truly had that open door from behind me other than Trevor, and I never was in the right position when I had that enormous of a keep running so as to recover the lead.
"Truly, it took a considerable measure of folks ganging up and getting together with a specific end goal to make out of here him. He was quite savvy about where he situated his auto on the race track, and I could see that, and I attempted to do some of those same things, yet, man, it just never truly worked for me in the same class as he could deal with it."
The race kept running without significant episode for the initial 89 laps, with an opposition alert on Lap 21 and a dark banner to Danica Patrick for driving through excessively numerous pit boxes on a Lap 67 green-banner pit stop first giving the greater part of the energy.
In any case, that was the quiet before a fierce tempest.
As the field thundered into turn one on lap 90, Jamie McMurray's Chevrolet got free, reached Ganassi Dashing partner Kyle Larson, escaped shape and veered strongly into the outside divider after contact from Jimmie Johnson's Chevrolet.
That was the flash that lighted a disaster area that gathered 22 of the 40 autos in the field and disposed of McMurray, Johnson, Paul Menard and arrangement pioneer Kevin Harvick, while intensely harming the autos of Sunoco New kid on the block of the Year pioneer Pursue Elliott, Martin Truex Jr., Matt Kenseth and Patrick, among others.
Harvick said he was expecting the powder barrel that is restrictor-plate dashing to blast at any moment - and on lap 90 it did.
"You truly believe it will happen from lap one," said Harvick, who now drives the Container arrangement by 14 focuses over Keselowski."
It's difficult to make ground, so you must be truly forceful when you begin making ground.
"Only sort of riding there, simply keeping up until that next pit stop so we could get my auto off the ground and after that truly begin being forceful. I truly couldn't be forceful, and sadly, I was in the back of that front pack and wound up getting in the disaster area."
Yet, Keselowski was in front of the disaster area, as he was for the duration of the night, and in staying at the front he earned proprietor Roger Penske his 100th triumph in the arrangement.
Notes: Notwithstanding destroying and completing 26th, Stewart moved into 30th spot in the arrangement standings, the position he needs to keep up or enhance to stay qualified for the Pursuit for the NASCAR Sprint Glass... Ricky Stenhouse Jr. completed fifth, coordinating his season-best result (Fontana)... With Bayne third, Stenhouse fifth and polesitter Greg Biffle eighth, Roush Fenway Hustling had three autos in the main 10 interestingly since 2014 at Bristol... Michael McDowell (tenth) scored his first main 10 since the 2014 July race at Daytona.
Results
1. (5) Brad Keselowski, Portage, 161.
2. (3) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 161.
3. (13) Trevor Bayne, Portage, 161.
4. (11) Joey Logano, Portage, 161.
5. (4) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Portage, 161.
6. (17) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 161.
7. (6) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 161.
8. (1) Greg Biffle, Portage, 161.
9. (31) Clint Bowyer, Chevrolet, 161.
10. (37) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet, 161.
11. (35) * Cole Whitt, Toyota, 161.
12. (20) Casey Mears, Chevrolet, 161.
13. (26) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 161.
14. (12) * Ryan Blaney #, Portage, 161.
15. (14) Aric Almirola, Portage, 161.
16. (38) David Ragan, Toyota, 161.
17. (9) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 161.
18. (23) Ryan Newman, Chevrolet, 161.
19. (28) * David Gilliland, Portage, 161.
20. (33) Michael Annett, Chevrolet, 161.
21. (16) Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chevrolet, 161.
22. (39) * Reed Sorenson, Toyota, 161.
23. (10) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, 161.
24. (32) Bobby Labonte, Passage, 160.
25. (2) Carl Edwards, Toyota, Mischance, 155.
26. (19) Tony Stewart, Chevrolet, Mischance, 148.
27. (22) Danica Patrick, Chevrolet, 130.
28. (7) Matt Kenseth, Toyota, 127.
29. (15) Martin Truex Jr., Toyota, 127.
30. (18) Kasey Kahne, Chevrolet, 122.
31. (34) Landon Cassill, Passage, 119.
32. (24) Pursue Elliott #, Chevrolet, 113.
33. (36) Matt DiBenedetto, Toyota, 108.
34. (29) Jamie McMurray, Chevrolet, Mischance, 91.
35. (8) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, Mischance, 89.
36. (27) Paul Menard, Chevrolet, Mischance, 89.
37. (30) Brian Scott #, Passage, Mishap, 89.
38. (40) Regan Smith, Chevrolet, Mischance, 89.
39. (21) Kevin Harvick, Chevrolet, Mischance, 89.
40. (25) Chris Buescher #, Passage, Mishap, 89.