DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Kyle Busch won the first win of the new season, overtaking NASCAR champion Chase Elliott after Elliott took down leader Ryan Blaney in the final stretch of the Busch Clash show.
Blaney chased Elliott on the race track at Daytona International Speedway to take the lead with two laps left for the opening of the Speedweeks’ 35 laps on Tuesday night. Elliott, winner of the last four NASCAR road races in 2019, did not let Blaney step aside and prepare for a final chance of victory.
He chased Blaney into the chicane headed for the final push of Curve 4, and when Elliott approached his bumper, the two made contact and Blaney spun against the wall. This cost Elliott his momentum and Busch sailed for the surprise victory.
“I just knew I should keep my head down and focus ahead and just see if I could hit my marks to have a shot like that if something like that materialized,” said Busch.
Busch led only the final 300 feet of the race for Joe Gibbs Racing’s victory. It comes after a disappointing season of victory for the 2019 NASCAR champion. The lack of success led to an off-season jolt with his number 18 Toyota team.
For Busch, the victory comes after a disappointing season of a victory for the 2019 NASCAR champion. He fought in the second half of the season, failed to advance to the last four rounds of the championship for the first time since 2014 and his team number 18 Toyota was overhauled over the winter.
Gibbs made so many changes to Busch’s crew that he joked that he felt like he had been fired and moved on to a new tour.
“I’m not sure if we are mature enough or ready enough to win as a group, but I think this is a good start,” said Busch. “Winning never hurts anything, but there are some things to improve a little, to grow.”
Elliott finished second and Blaney third. The two are close friends off the track and chatted in Blaney’s damaged race car upon arrival.
“If I’m sorry for trying to win a race, I’m in the wrong business,” said Elliott. “Obviously, I don’t want to destroy anyone. I feel like you have to go to an event like this.”
Blaney attributed this to a difficult race in the first event since the end of the November season.
“Of course he didn’t want to destroy me, but I ended up destroyed,” said Blaney. “I said to him, ‘If you’re going to make a move like that, you better be sure to win the race and not let third place win.'”
Clash has always been the opening event for Speedweeks, which traditionally spans two weekends before the opening of the Daytona 500 season. NASCAR this year is experiencing a condensed schedule and all races span six days and conclude with the great Sunday show.
This year’s race was the first time on the Daytona course, a plan announced before the start of the 2020 season. NASCAR switched from the traditional oval shape to meet fan calls for more variety on the schedule and imagined it would be a final race in the current car before the Next Gen model was launched.
But the Next Gen was postponed until 2022 because of the pandemic, and NASCAR used the Daytona track in August last year for a point payout race, when it had to change the schedule to complete the season. Elliott won the inaugural Daytona Road Course race.
The Clash was much smoother than last year’s race at the Daytona oval, a crash-fest in which each car suffered at least one incident and only six cars ran at the end. The race also had 12 leadership changes, one less than the August race here, which had an additional 30 laps.
NASCAR will take the road route again on February 21 in an event with payment of points. The race was moved to Daytona because of the pandemic restrictions in California, where NASCAR was scheduled to run in Fontana.