Kurt Busch wins Daytona 500 demolition derby

Kurt Busch, taking advantage of fuel issues by his closest competitors, won Sunday’s NASCAR season-opening Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway. Just after a restart from yet another crash, Jamie McMurray nudged pole-sitter Chase on the backstretch. This turned the Daytona 500 into a fuel-mileage race and crew chief Tony Gibson wasn’t sure if Busch could save enough gas to make it to the end without stopping.

Busch crossed the finish line ahead of Ryan Blaney and AJ Allmendinger, with the top 10 rounded out by Aric Almirola, Paul Menard, Joey Logano, Kasey Kahne, Michael Waltrip, Matt DiBenedetto and Trevor Bayne. The shift to Ford, announced early last season, raised doubt. We had a good points day, gaining points in the stages and then we finished 12th. “Just one of those things you can’t do anything about”.

That Busch would even be in that position to capitalize on others misfortune had been in doubt.

That left Busch, who glided past Larson but had to fight off a surging Ryan Blaney.

Andretti said his auto was very loose during the 1967 race, and some suggested that drivers were afraid to pass him – allowing him to stay at the front of the pack. “We went through everything today”.

“I was thankful I got through a lot of the wrecks”, he said.

Earnhardt eventually was forced to retire from the race when his auto could not be repaired sufficiently in the five minutes allotted by new rules that allow teams only five minutes to fix damage on pit road.

Besides the Ford-Chevy-Toyota competition, there’s the question of how NASCAR is doing with its latest version of organizing races and awarding points. It capped a dramatic race under NASCAR’s new rules, creating segment periods, which pushed drivers to keep racing aggressively though the usually relaxed middle laps. The Monster Energy-backed driver won the first race in the first year of Monster’s highly publicized title sponsorship of NASCAR’s premier Cup Series.

“There is nothing predictable about this race anymore and the more years that have gone by that I didn’t win I kept trying to go back to patterns that I had seen in the past”, an emotional Busch told reporters. I met this woman, Ashley.

Many a times had Busch been close to being handed the Harley J. Earl trophy, given to the Daytona 500 victor – he finished second three separate times in the aforementioned race prior to this year’s victory. Busch was a three-time runner-up (2003, ’05 and ’08) at the 500, while Stewart never took the checkered flag in this race in 17 attempts. Even crazier to sit and watch it from a pit box. The co-owner, Tony Stewart, retired previous year, going 0-18 in the Daytona 500 as a driver.

“I don’t really know what happened. luckily the hit wasn’t that hard”.

Stewart retired from NASCAR driving after last season, choosing to focus on his role as co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing and his passion, racing dirt sprint cars. “This is awesome, man”.

· On Lap 105, Kyle Busch’s auto (No. 18 M&M’s Toyota) had a tire go down in Turn 3, causing him to spin and collect five other cars, including Earnhardt’s Chevrolet, which had been leading the race since Lap 97. “She said you know it’s an omen that your mirror came apart because you’re not supposed to be looking in the rear view mirror. Kurt did an fantastic job”. “The mirror folded on him”, Stewart said.