Busch Clash live updates: Kyle Busch steals race victory from Blaney, Elliott
NASCAR’s 2021 year is being teased by Fox as (maybe) the “Best Season Ever.” The story lines, which include new teams, new tracks and celebrity investors, are seemingly endless. Tonight, the 2021 season starts.
Unofficially. The non-points exhibition race, the Busch Clash, will put drivers on the Daytona road course for the first NASCAR Cup competition since last season’s finale at Phoenix.
Ryan Blaney is starting on the pole with Alex Bowman in the front row, via a random draw. The full lineup for the race is below. This is the first time the Clash is being run on the Daytona road course instead of the tri-oval, and should give the 21 teams entered a chance to gather data ahead of the points race at the Daytona road course on Feb. 21.
“When you go down (to Daytona) and lose one (car) in the Clash and one in the 500, or two or three in the 500 — I’ve lost four there before — and it’s costly,” Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick said, highlighting a benefit to teams running the Clash on the road course.
“You put so much work into those cars to make them as aerodynamic as they can be. They’re like a fine watch,” Hendrick said. “And when the race is over, they look like they raced Martinsville ... I’m really glad we’re running the road course at the Clash though. I don’t think we’ll have near the opportunity for wrecks as we would on the oval.”
Before the Clash, team haulers will arrive to the garage in the morning, and two drivers in tonight’s race, Joey Logano (morning) and Ty Dillon (afternoon) are scheduled to speak with the media. We’ll have highlights from those sessions posted here later.
Check back for Speedweeks updates throughout the day and follow the Observer’s NASCAR reporter Alex Andrejev on Twitter at @AndrejevAlex. Got story ideas or tips for the 2021 season? Send them to aandrejev@charlotteobserver.com.
Live Busch Clash updates and results
Kyle Busch wins
CHECKERED FLAG: Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney raced into the final chicane at the Daytona road course and spun out as Kyle Busch was able to sneak in and steal the race. Stay tuned for full results.
Truex Jr. wrecks after taking lead
Lap 28, 8:26 p.m.: Denny Hamlin has been in control for most of this race, but teammate Martin Truex Jr. took the lead with eight laps to go. It didn’t last long. He lost control in a chicane and drove into the side wall. He will finish 20th and his night is over. Ryan Blaney is now in the lead, Hamlin is second.
Third caution
Lap 22, 8:08 p.m.: Cole Custer’s car is smoking and stalled on a front-stretch chicane. It’s a lot of starting and stopping out there tonight. Denny Hamlin is still in the lead, followed by Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch.
Pit strategy playing out
Lap 15, 7:51 p.m.: Chase Elliott, Austin Dillon, Kurt Busch and Ryan Blaney pit before the competition caution. Martin Truex Jr. misses the frontstretch chicane, and doesn’t do a stop-and-go, so he has to restart at the rear at the next green flag.
Truex to the top spot
Lap 14, 7:46 p.m.: Martin Truex Jr. chases down Denny Hamlin, making a pass on his inside for the lead on Lap 14. He leads Hamlin and Brad Keselowski at the caution.
Reddick, Keselowski to the front, problems for Harvick
Lap 11, 7:40 p.m.: After a caution to clear debris, the field restarts with leader Ryan Blaney overshooting the first turn and losing the lead. Kevin Harvick spins for a second time and is still stuck in last. Tyler Reddick takes the top spot, but Brad Keselowski follows close behind. He eventually takes the lead from Reddick.
Off to the races! Hamlin takes the early lead
Lap 3, 7:15 p.m.: NASCAR goes green for road course night racing to start the 2021 season. Chase Elliott was sent to the rear at the start for an unapproved adjustment. Ryan Blaney started on the pole, but Denny Hamlin takes an early lead with Blaney in second and Bowman in third. Harvick hits dirt on the racetrack near the bus stop and falls to last place.
NASCAR drivers we’re talking to today
We’ll let you know what they say.
- Joey Logano. 10–10:30 a.m.
- Ross Chastain. 10:50-11 a.m.
- Ty Dillon. 1:30-2 p.m.
What’s happening around NASCAR today ...
Ty Dillon talks opportunities with Toyota teams: “Things are working out great.”
2 p.m. Ty Dillon is set to compete for 23XI Racing in tonight’s Busch Clash (starting 14th). He is also slated to attempt entry in the Daytona 500 driving for Gaunt Brothers Racing as an Open car, and the team announced Monday that Dillon will drive its No. 96 Toyota Camry at the Daytona road course race the following week.
“Things are working out great,” Dillon told reporters Tuesday. “I would have never thought I would have had an opportunity to race for Toyota in general, and then to have opportunities with Joe Gibbs Racing, Gaunt Brothers Racing.”
Dillon was out of a full-time ride after his Germain Racing team closed its shop last season and sold its Cup charter to 23XI. In addition to Cup races this year, Dillon is scheduled to compete in select Xfinity events for Joe Gibbs Racing.
He is slated to run the Xfinity season opener at Daytona in the No. 54 Toyota Supra, as well as Xfinity races at Miami (Feb. 27), Las Vegas (March 6) and Talladega (April 24), splitting time in the car with JGR’s Cup drivers and ARCA driver Ty Gibbs.
“This has opened up a whole new avenue and I see it as a great opportunity,” Dillon said of his upcoming races with Toyota. “Some things happen for a reason. Some opportunities don’t come. Some doors close. And I see this as a chance to catapult to the next part of my career.”
Ross Chastain not in Rookie of the Year battle, but feels like a Cup rookie
12 p.m. Chip Ganassi Racing driver Ross Chastain won’t be eligible for this year’s Rookie of the Year competition in the Cup Series.
“Isn’t that crazy?” Chastain told The Observer. Chastain said he had stopped in Orlando to do some media calls this morning while driving to Daytona Beach from his family’s watermelon farm in Fort Myers, Fla.
“I’ve never collected a single point in the Cup Series and I’ve never run all the races,” Chastain said.
NASCAR’s Rookie of the Year eligibility maintains that a driver must be competing for driver championship points and that the driver must not have started in more than seven events in any prior season in that series, although it is not officially written in the NASCAR rulebook.
Chastain has started in 79 Cup events since 2017, but he’s never run the full 36-race schedule nor declared for driver points in Cup prior to this season. He said he wanted to run for Rookie of the Year honors in Cup this year, but there will only be two drivers competing for that title: Front Row Motorsports’ No. 38 Ford driver Anthony Alfredo and Stewart-Haas Racing No. 14 Ford driver Chase Briscoe.
“I feel like legitimately, I am (a rookie),” Chastain said. “But by the numbers, I’m not. It’s gotta be fair for everybody. It needs to be the same for everybody and it seems to be. I still have a lot to learn, though.”
Read the full story here.
How Joey Logano sees dirt trial and Busch Clash on road course
10:40 a.m. Logano entered a dirt race at Volusia Speedway Park, a half-mile dirt oval in Florida, over the weekend and posted an impressive third-place finish in his modified feature. It was his first time at DIRTcar Nationals in a UMP Modified. Logano said his entry was intended to help prepare him for the NASCAR Cup race at Bristol Motor Speedway on dirt this year, but he noted that it’s a “very different type of racing.”
“There’s no mirrors in that thing! And I’m a mirror driving guy,” Logano said of his modified car. “When you took that thing away from me, I didn’t know what to do.”
Logano is also entered in tonight’s Clash. He said that just because the race is on the road course, he doesn’t expect less hard racing.
“It’s an all-star race,” Logano said. “There’s nothing to lose. Everyone’s going to be racing aggressively.”
No surprise, Logano said he’ll be racing aggressively, too. Defending Daytona 500 winner, Denny Hamlin, chimed in on social media with his thoughts about tonight’s race running on the road course. Hamlin doesn’t appear to be a fan.
“Some ideas are meant to stay ideas,” he wrote.
How to watch NASCAR Busch Clash
Race: Busch Clash at Daytona
Distance: 126.35 miles, 35 laps on the 3.61-mile road course
Where: Daytona road course
When: 7 p.m. EST
TV: FS1 (coverage starts at 6 p.m.)
Streaming:
Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
2020 winner: Erik Jones
Busch Clash starting order
This story was originally published February 9, 2021 at 9:47 AM with the headline "Busch Clash live updates: Kyle Busch steals race victory from Blaney, Elliott."
