DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Thursday’s (Feb. 15) Daytona 500 qualifying races have lost some of their luster in recent years. Thirty-six locked-in spots combined with drivers playing it safe to save their primary car have often made this prep for the Great American Race a great American snooze.
Not this time around.
The NASCAR Cup Series racked up a whopping 28 lead changes in two competitive Bluegreen Vacations Duels, easily the most since the tandem drafting package was used at this superspeedway back in 2011. There were a number of surprises who ran near the front, from Riley Herbst to BJ McLeod, plus a last-corner pass by Jimmie Johnson to prevent a surprising DNQ and two Duel winners who led only the final lap of the race.
Oh, and the reigning Cup champion Ryan Blaney started his title defense on fire, then came out firing after a wild crash wiped him out in the second Duel.
“I’m pissed,” Blaney said after getting hooked hard right into the outside wall in the tri-oval. “I’m sick of getting right reared here by someone else’s awful push. … Did everything right tonight, and now we need to work our ass off these next two days.”
There was a little bit of everything in these Duels, side-by-side action often reserved for when the green flag falls in Sunday’s main event. It was hard to pin the aggression on any one thing. Noah Gragson theorized saving fuel kept the draft a little more competitive. New body styles for Ford and Toyota, especially Toyota (which swept both Duels), may have allowed them to draft better. Tyler Reddick even thought the points for these races (10 for his win) might have made a difference with drivers thinking playoffs.
Keep in mind it’s also the third year of the Next Gen car. As is often the case with the superspeedway package throughout the sport’s long history, drivers tend to figure these things out the longer we go.
To be fair, not everybody felt so warm and fuzzy about the handling package.
“Man, what a frustrating race,” Kyle Busch said after turning William Byron to start the Blaney wreck. “Just sitting in line — saving fuel, stuck on the bottom, can’t go anywhere. You get back in line … you want to go forward. We were taking the momentum, whichever way the momentum was coming, and just ended up wrecking.”
But Busch appeared to be in the minority, a healthy crowd for the Duels witnessing…
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