Regan Smith earned redemption at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway Saturday afternoon in the DRIVE4COPD 300 after surging to the lead in a green-white-checker in the 2014 NASCAR Nationwide Series season-opener to earn his fourth career series victory.
Last year, Smith found himself in the same position, but a massive incident coming to the checkered flag haunted not only the New York native, but much of the garage area, after Kyle Larson’s Chevrolet flew into the catch fence and injured more than two dozen fans. This year, thankfully, everything worked out (as it should).
“I’m fortunate that I’ve got a boss who has been in a lot of different situations in this sport and understands a lot of different things over the years in Dale,” Smith said. “He just basically said, ‘You’ve got to shake it off, it’s racing and no fault of anybody. Circumstances sometimes happen. He offered up a lot of good advice in that situation. It did bother me. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.”
Brad Keselowski in his No. 22 Discount Tire Ford Mustang brought the field back to green, but the outside line, which struggled to fuse together early in the race attacked when it counted allowing Trevor Bayne Smith to prowl and make their mark past the former Sprint Cup Series champion. He finished second. Bayne was third.
“That was a pretty strong day,” said the Rochester Hills, Michigan native. “We got to that one green-flag pit cycle which helped us get the track position at the end that we needed and then we were just kind of picking them off one-by-one as we made our way to the front and made some moves. We got some help from a couple different people. We got to the high lane and got stuck on the high lane in a couple of restarts which was frustrating that it doesn’t work as well with these Nationwide cars. We made some moves with the help of Trevor (Bayne) and James Buescher and he got that penalty which kind of set the tone for the rest of the race as far as what guys were looking at for driving their cars. From there, we made it to the lead there on that move with the help of Trevor again and I was kind of managing the lanes there until the yellow came out to set up the green-white-checkered. I thought we had a chance to pull it off quite honestly.”
Kyle Busch, Friday night’s winner of the NextEra Energy Resources 250 was fourth, while Elliott Sadler was fifth in the No. 11 OneMain Financial Toyota Camry.
Brendan Gaughan in his full-time return to Richard Childress Racing was sixth followed by his rookie teammate Ty Dillon and pole sitter Dylan Kwasniewski in eighth. Ryan Sieg, the full-time competitor for RSS Racing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series was ninth with Kyle Larson comprising the top-10.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., the winning car-owner finished 11th, but was criticized for a three-car incident following the checkered flag when he clocked the No. 42 of Kyle Larson, who darted out from the inside line into oncoming traffic which included Sieg, Joe Nemechek and Ryan Reed. Reed, who crashed out in Friday’s time trials plowed the rear of the No. 87, but emerged from the incident unharmed.
In a post-race interview, Earnhardt Jr. took responsibility for the carnage and offered to repair the cars of Kyle Larson and Joe Nemechek. In fairness, NASCAR’s most popular driver wasn’t aware of the other vehicles (Sieg and Reed) involvement, so the offer will likely stand for them as well.
“We were slowing down. I was looking all around trying to figure out where everybody was at,” he said. “Totally my fault. Really wasn’t paying attention. I hate it for Joe and those guys ’cause they don’t need to be tearing up race cars.”
Nemechek finished 12th, while Mike Wallace claimed 13th, Matt Kenseth, who suffered an abundance amount of problems on pit road managed 14th with Chase Elliott in his NASCAR Nationwide Series rounding out the top-15 in the third JR Motorsports entry.
James Buescher, who contended early on in his RAB Racing debut was tagged for “pushing”, which sent his No. 99 Rheem Toyota Camry to pit road under green to serve a pass-through penalty. A caution flew a few laps later keeping the former NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion on the lead lap. Despite restarting deep in the pack, Buescher managed to find some drafting partners and recover for a 16th-place finish.
Questions around NASCAR’s new tandem racing were thrown into question as Keselowski, who was the recipient of Buescher’s alleged push was not also penalized for the “lock-up.” NASCAR told Catchfence.com that in their judgment, they felt that Buescher acted alone and instigated the situation, thus Keselowski was not penalized.
Smith’s margin of victory (0.013) is the seventh closest all-time in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, and second closest in series history at Daytona International Speedway.
Next up for the NASCAR Nationwide Series is a trip out west to Phoenix (Ariz.) International Raceway for the running of the Blue Jeans Go Green 200 on Saturday, March 1.[table=2095](i) Ineligible for Driver Points int this Series
# Denotes Rookie
Source: Timing and Scoring provided by NASCARMedia/NASCAR Statistics
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
