Haley wins weather-shortened Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona

By
Holly Cain NASCAR Wire Service July 7, 2019 at 5:32 PM


DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – As the dark clouds and lightning descended upon Daytona International Speedway Sunday afternoon, Justin Haley climbed out of his No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet feeling like it was perhaps divine intervention. He was first on the scoreboard at the time Sunday’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 was red-flagged for lightning 33 laps short of the intended 160-lap distance.

Two hours and 12 minutes later, the 20-year old Indiana native was celebrating his first career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup win – in only his third career start. It was an unlikely turn of events in a very eventful race.

RELATED: ‘Big One’ hits late at Daytona | Results

As Haley stood speaking with reporters during the long weather delay, a team member walked up and hugged him, delivering the career-defining news to the Xfinity Series standout: “You just won your first Monster Energy NASCAR race.”

“It’s absolutely a blessing, pretty incredible that I have so many people around me who have given me this opportunity,” Haley said, just before receiving a hug from his mother, Melissa Dennis.

“I knew eventually we’d be standing there and celebrating a win, but I was definitely not prepared on his third Cup start to be here and experience this,” Dennis said, beaming with pride and conceding she nervously spent the red flag downtime cleaning the family’s motor coach just to keep her mind busy.

As Haley – the second-youngest Cup winner in Daytona International Speedway history – stood inside the driver meeting room during the weather delay, he smiled nervously and showed reporters how his hands were shaking in tense anticipation.

Drivers were actually called to their cars to restart after the initial red flag, but lightning moved into the immediate area again – necessitating another 30-minute safety delay. Before that time passed, the rain returned. And the race was declared official.

In the end, Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet teammates William Byron and Jimmie Johnson finished second and third, respectively. And Ty Dillon and Ryan Newman rounded out the top-five.

As elated as Haley was by the unforeseen circumstances, the 2017 Daytona 500 winner Kurt Busch was equally as gutted. He had been leading the race during the yellow flag caution period immediately preceding the red flag stoppage. He had opted not to pit initially with the poor weather approaching, but when given the one-to-go signal prior to the restart, Busch zipped down pit road for a last-minute fill-up.

MORE: Busch: ‘I was just on the wrong side of a lightning bolt’

Unfortunately for Busch, however, the weather conditions changed so quickly that by the time the field was on the backstretch, NASCAR decided to keep the yellow caution flag flying instead of dropping the green flag to race again. Within minutes, the red flag came out, and teams were ordered to pit road, their cars covered with the bad weather approaching. Busch had rejoined the field in 10th place – his ultimate finishing position.

That was only one chapter of the race’s fully dramatic story.

The who-and-when of pit stops became especially strategic after a caution flag on Lap 120 of the scheduled 160-lapper. The “Big One,” as multi-car accidents are called on the Daytona high banks, occurred when the front-running cars of Austin Dillon and Clint Bowyer touched at high speed in Turn 1. In all, 18 cars were collected – most of them considered pre-race favorites such as polesitter Joey Logano, Hendrick Motorsports cars Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman and all four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers, Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin and defending race winner Erik Jones.

Asked what happened, Bowyer said in his typically candid fashion, “I guess he didn’t want me to pass him.

“I don’t know,” Bowyer said of Dillon. “I got under him and he blocked and we got together, I got off of him, moved down and got off of him – and here he comes back down even more and just finally wrecked us all.”

Even though their competitive hopes were finished in that accident, Logano (41 laps) and Dillon (46 laps) led the most laps on the afternoon. The time up front was especially impressive for the polesitter and Stage 1 winner Logano, who was involved in two accidents to varying degrees. But he still rallied to finish 25th.

As the series heads to Kentucky Speedway next week, Logano still maintains an 18-point lead over 14th-place finisher Kyle Busch in the Cup championship standings.

The first major incident of the afternoon ironically involved one of the two cars also part of the only practice wreck leading into the race. Only this time, it was Brad Keselowski’s No. 2 Team Penske Ford that got the rough end of contact.

On Lap 83, his Ford was hit from behind by fellow Ford driver Kevin Harvick’s No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, sending Keselowski hard into the high side wall and multiple cars spinning off track in reaction. Ultimately, Keselowski retired his car, Harvick returned after multiple pit stops to repair damage as did his SHR teammate Daniel Suarez, who spun off the track with Richard Childress Racing rookie Daniel Hemric – the lone Chevy involved in the incident.

Shortly after the dark skies started creeping in, the race intensity increased accordingly.

All the teams were keeping an eye on the sky, and Haley’s veteran crew chief Peter Sospenzo conceded that the game plan was absolutely to keep Haley on track and not stopping in the pits.

“My thought process was even if we had four flat tires we weren’t going to pit,” Sospenzo said. “We were going to ride out the weather. It was our only option to steal a win, if you want to call it that. We were not going to come in, and I was actually a little surprised a couple guys in front of us did.

“We just wanted to have a decent finish,” he added, “not get caught up in any wrecks, and it just worked out.”

 

Sometime back, there was another race at Daytona....called for rain.....a rookie team mate of Michael Waltrip was in the lead at the time.

The leader was parked at the first spot on pit road during the rain.

Michael Waltrip had his arms folded across his chest as they leaned against the front car.......covering his sponsor's name.

The rookie kept his arms at his sides.

All during the red flag rain stop, cameras were on the front car and the driver. It was a good move not blocking his sponsors name.

The race was called finished due to rain and the lead car was declared the winner.

The racer who won it was named Rutiman.......worked at a body shop, and was from Zephyrhills Florida..........and he never raced at Daytona again.

But as Dom Toretto says: "A win is a win." and no one will ever take that away from him.
---------------------------------

The last time I was there in the body shop, I saw they had cut off the back of the race car and placed it in front of the counter........
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For the racers who are now crying about the race getting called early
and saying they wanted to actually race for it,

maybe next time, when you see the rain coming, and there is a possibility that the race will be stopped for rain,
maybe you should get on the gas BEFORE the red flag comes out.
-------------------------

 

Lightning strikes in Daytona for first-time Cup winner Haley

Image by Jarrett/LAT


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By: Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service July 7, 2019 4:14 PM
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Dillon defensive after multi-car wreck at Daytona

Image courtesy NASCAR


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By: Kelly Crandall July 7, 2019 2:02 PM


Austin Dillon wanted to keep the lead, knowing bad weather was coming – and his aggressiveness started a 17-car wreck at Daytona.

Second on the inside line coming off Turn 4, Dillon got a run on leader Denny Hamlin and jumped to the outside to take the lead. Clint Bowyer, leading the outside lane, got a run on Dillon and dove to the bottom as the field charged into Turn 1. Bowyer and Dillon collided, triggering the biggest crash of the race on lap 119.




“Originally off of Turn 4, I thought me and the 9 (Chase Elliott, who was third) would be able to get by the 11. But the 9 wasn’t clear,” said Dillon. “I really thought it was kind of urgent because the lightning and rain were coming, so I jumped up there, had a good push from the 14, and my plan — as soon as I cleared the 11 – was to cut left and get down again to get with my Chevy teammates.




“It’s really unfortunate. We had a really fast American Ethanol Chevy. It was cool winning the stage. Just trying to get a race win. That’s all it is. I got turned a little bit left when [Bowyer] went left, and it kind of shot me down there; I just kept coming left.

“It’s part of this kind of racing,” Dillon continued. “I was being aggressive and trying to keep the lead, and it’s what you get. It’s part of it. Just thought I’d try and keep it up front. We had had fast car, really proud of the guys. Hate that it ended that way. Wish we could have worked with the Chevys to finish off what we started.”

Dillon led 46 laps and won Stage 2.

Among those collected in the accident were Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Kyle Busch, Martin Truex Jr., Erik Jones, Kyle Larson, and Alex Bowman. Under the resulting caution, NASCAR had to red flag the race for lightning.

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“What do you do?” said Bowyer. “That was terrible. That wasn’t even close. When we got together, I pulled off of him to give him some room, and then he just never quit coming down and wrecked us all. It’s just part of the racing.

“You want to blame him. But if it would have been anybody else out there, they would have probably done the same thing. We had a fast hot-rod, had a good run, and was going for the lead; and it’s just the nature of this kind of racing. It sucks. You want to be pissed off, frustrated and blame somebody, but at the end of the day it’s just part of racing.”




Said Blaney: “I haven’t seen a replay, but apparently it was a case of someone not being cleared at all, so that part is frustrating. It’s one thing if you’re kind of pushing each other and someone gets turned, something like that; but when you just chop somebody like that, from what I hear, it’s frustrating — especially since we were rows back.

“In both Daytona races this year we’ve been four rows back in the deal and just got absolutely destroyed. There was nowhere to go and none of our doing, so that’s the way it goes.”

 

Mixed emotions in officials' call ending weather-plagued Daytona

Image by Jarrett/LAT


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By: Kelly Crandall July 7, 2019 5:30 PM


William Byron (No. 24, above) finished second at Daytona, but would have liked the opportunity to “win it” the way he wanted to. Others were happy to take their unexpected finishes and head to the house. Matt DiBenedetto oozed disappointment.

Reaction to the Coke Zero Sugar 400 being declared official after 127 of its scheduled 160 laps varied throughout the finishing order. Justin Haley and Spire Motorsports led just one lap and pulled off an unlikely upset. NASCAR initially halted the race at 3:18 p.m. because of lightning in the area.

When NASCAR called drivers back to their cars, lightning again struck within eight miles of the track, causing another delay.

Then came the rainstorm.

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“You’re up and down a lot here,” said Byron. “It would have been cool to win, for sure. But it would have been a really weird way to win. So, I’m glad that we got the day out of it that we did.

“I would have liked to go back racing and win it the way I wanted to,” Byron continued, “but our team did a great job this week managing all the chaos, and finishing second with a backup car is pretty good. Overall, it was a good race for us.”

Jimmie Johnson finished third, his second consecutive top-five.

“If it did go back to green, I think there were only a handful of cars still in good shape,” he said. “We were certainly willing to do everything we could to get a Hendrick car to victory lane, but it is what it is. The race has been called and we’ll take the third-place points and head home.”

Johnson, like Byron, was one of a few drivers who missed the big crash that put the race under caution before the red flag was displayed.

Ty Dillon finished fourth and said he wasn’t disappointed the race didn’t get going again. The finish is a career-best for Dillon in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, and his first top five. It tied a career-best result for Germain Racing.




“I would have liked the chance to race for a win but first top five, best finish ever, I’m pretty pleased with that too,” said Dillon. “I’m thrilled for our Germain Racing team; this is a nice little shot in the arm for our team to get the second half of the season going. It’s been a little bit disappointing the last couple of weeks, so to have a good finish here is going to catapult us (forward) and hopefully, we continue to build off that momentum.

“Proud of our effort today, and sometimes it seems to work out.”

Sixth-place finisher Corey LaJoie laughed and said, “Hell yeah” he was going to take his result and run.

“We could have probably made a little run at the end because we never really were aggressive all day, but if you’d told me sixth when we first started, take it or leave it, I would have taken it because that’s just the way these things shake out,” said LaJoie. “So, we’ll take it and go to Kentucky and do the best we can.”

LaJoie’s sixth was Go Fas Racing’s best-ever Cup Series finish. Image by Kinrade/LAT


LaJoie said his No. 32 Go Fas Racing team celebrates small victories like Sunday. The finish was the team’s best of the season and best in its history as well as LaJoie’s career best and fourth top-20 of the season.

“Obviously, it’s a good payday on the back end to the team, and it’s a good points day, too, because we’re racing around the Front Row guys and we beat all three of them again today,” he said. “We had a couple bad weeks — at Sonoma, and then last week we had a good car at Chicago but had a couple loose wheels; so it’s good to rebound with a good finish here.

“We had a couple really good finishes and anytime you got something fun to drive, and it’s got a little bit of speed in it, it makes my job a lot easier.”

Dejection was clear in DiBenedetto’s voice when asked about the race being called early. After having the strongest car in the Daytona 500 only to be wrecked late, DiBenedetto was looking forward to getting a chance to make something happen. He finished eighth.

“Oh, disappointed for sure,” he said. “Not happy, but that’s Mother Nature; the race started so late. Needed to get the whole race in for us. It was fast. We worked on the car and got the handling good, and it was really good at the end. I could lead the train and pull them up to the front — that’s why I was really hoping to go back green because we were sitting pretty (with) four tires, fuel. Car was super fast.”

DiBenedetto was even optimistic despite not having any Toyota teammates around.

“Yeah, that was going to be the obstacle to overcome that we were talking about, being stuck around all the Chevys and Fords,” he said. “But the speed of our car was just so good I was hoping to kind of wedge my way up there and get to the lead. Car had speed, that’s for sure.”

Ninth was Matt Tifft, who also scored a career-best result.

“Honestly, we’ll take it,” he said with a smile. “I think we would have been in a good spot going back because we didn’t have any damage and we were inside the top 10, we knew we had a shot at it. But, shoot — for us, a top 10 for Front Row Motorsports and where we’ve been, this is a huge finish for us.

“Our strategy was to see if our car could be in the pack and if it could, hang in there; and if we didn’t feel great about it, just try and get back and play smart. We were able to do that and execute it and get a top 10 out of it, which is huge for our group.”