The Daytona 500 That Was and Wasn’t – Motorsports Tribune

It was poised to become one of the most memorable Daytona 500 finishes of all time until it became just another Daytona finish of our times.

Kyle Busch, with a push from Richard Childress Racing teammate Austin Dillon had taken the lead from Brad Keselowski and RFK Racing teammate Chris Buescher and were speeding to the white flag when a Daniel Suárez spin produced the most predictable outcome imaginable — a series of overtimes that eventually sent Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to Victory Lane.

It’s a good story and the JTG Daugherty Racing are deserving winners but it wasn’t the most authentic story that could have played out.

Busch and Keselowski are bonafide first-ballot Hall of Famers with only the Great American Race omitted from their resumes. Dillon, the 2018 winner, said after the race that he was committed to getting Busch the Harley J. Earl.

Keselowski, anytime Buescher connected to his rear bumper, could find speed no one else seemingly could tap into on Sunday. It wasn’t inconceivable that they would chase the Childress cars right back down over the ensuing 2.5 miles. At the same time, William Byron in the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 was right there as well.

Think about it: This was setting up to be an iconic battle between two champion without Daytona 500 wins and two of the three most iconic cars in the history of the Cup Series in the Childress 3 and Hendrick 24.

This was real Hollywood type stuff until the figurative script went out the window with the Suárez spin.

There is no one to blame, of course. Maybe race control could have kept their fingers off the button until after the leaders took the white flag but Suárez got stuck in the grass and NASCAR would have been eviscerated by the masses for that too.

It’s just a little disappointing from a racing purity standpoint that the current state of superspeedway racing regularly comes down to a series of restarts, crashes and video replay to determine who was leading at the time of the caution.

That was real Powerball type stuff, befitting of the sanctioning body’s new partnership with the multi-state lottery game brand.

Again, this is to take nothing away from Stenhouse and crew chief Mike Kelley, who arguably had the best car in 2020 and 2021 and were also victimized by the slot pull nature of the discipline. Stenhouse has certainly established himself as one of the most competent drivers at Daytona and Talladega.

It’s a dynamic best articulated…