DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – A Lap 105 crash in Sunday’s Daytona 500 eliminated some pre-race favorites including Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The incident started when Busch who pitted several laps before had a right rear tire go down on his No. 18 M&Ms Toyota Camry sending his Joe Gibbs Racing machine spinning directly into the path of Matt Kenseth, Erik Jones and leader Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Busch upset about the crash pointed fingers at tire manufacturer Goodyear for causing the six-car crash.
“Just getting into turn three as soon as we started picking up load it just started to come out from underneath me and started spinning,” said Busch.
“I could feel the rear tire kind of start to flap in there and I knew one of them was down. I couldn’t tell left or right. I want to say it was a left because of how long it took it to spin. But man we tore up three really good JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) cars there. We also tore up the 88 (Dale Earnhardt Jr.), so I feel horrible about that but man it’s nothing I can do. Nothing that I did wrong. These Goodyear tires aren’t very good at holding air, so it’s very frustrating when you’re trying to win a Daytona 500 and you gotta rely on other people and they don’t do a good job.”
Kenseth who’ll finish last in the Daytona 500 said he didn’t see much from his viewpoint.
“I didn’t see anything that happened in front of me. I know Kyle (Busch) spun out,” Kenseth, a former winner of the Daytona said. “Albeit a flat, or, I really don’t know. We caught those lapped cars. I thought we had ourselves in good position with our DeWalt Camry to get up there for segment two and hopefully be in a good position for the end of the race. Those lapped cars did some weird things – that 13 (Ty Dillon) and 95 (Michael McDowell) or whoever it was – they just split all over. So we had to kind of snake through there and into the corner at a weird angle.
“I looked back to make sure I was clear and when I looked back up they were already crashed in front of me and I already had Erik (Jones) parked on my hood. Just happened pretty quick. I just didn’t have anywhere to go. Never saw it happen and didn’t have anywhere to go.”
Earnhardt was attempting to maneuver by on the low side, but made significant contact with Busch’s car sending Earnhardt’s No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolet into the air and into the Turn 3 wall.
Ty Dillon in his debut for Germain Racing was also involved. Elliott Sadler running second also received minimal damage in the mishap.
Busch took his car immediately to the garage, while Furniture Row Racing’s Jones in his team debut along with his Toyota teammate Kenseth returned to the garage on rollbacks.
Dillon and Earnhardt made trips to pit road for repairs, but Earnhardt went to the garage with irreparable damage thanks to NASCAR’s new crash damage procedure.
Before the crash, Busch flexed the muscle of his Toyota contingent winning the first stage of a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race earning the Las Vegas, Nev. Native 10 regular season points and 1 playoff point utilized towards NASCAR’s 10-race playoff in September.
In NASCAR’s first race under a new race format consisting of three stages, the Toyota teams of Joe Gibbs Racing and Furniture Row Racing worked together during the first Stage pitting together before the end of the stage at Lap 60.
They played a similar strategy in Stage 2 which put them at the tail end of the lead lap ahead of Earnhardt and Sadler when the incident occurred.
The Daytona 500 was put under the red flag for 17 minutes while the track was cleaned up from the first multi-car accident of the afternoon.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
