A bout with the flu and a lack of practice time didn’t seem to bother Kevin Harvick, who won Saturday night’s Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway for the second consecutive year.
In a green-white-checkered finish, Harvick took the lead on Lap 75 and earned the win when caution froze the field after a push from Jeff Gordon’s Chevrolet spun Greg Biffle’s Ford in Turn 3 and ignited a multi-car wreck that trashed the car of polesitter Carl Edwards, among others.
“I was sick on Thursday and didn’t even get to see a lap in the car, but this thing was a rocket, man,” said Harvick, the fourth back-to-back winner in Shootout history. NASCAR.com
Kahne held on for a second-place finish, while Jamie McMurray, in his first start for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing, was third. Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin completed the top-five.
Carl Edwards led the most laps with 42—including all 25 laps in the first of two segments—but Edwards was shuffled back in the field in the late- stages and never became a factor from there. His wreck led to a 17th-place finish. MiamiHerald.com
“I was on edge from the beginning,” second-place finisher Kasey Kahne said. “I felt it was on from the time the green flag came out. ... I was getting hit and I was hitting cars.”
Kyle Busch said it was out of control, but drivers “just kept it in control.”
But nobody was happier with the way the race went than Harvick. After a disastrous 2009 season in which he switched crew chiefs, failed to win a points race and reportedly asked out of the final year of his contract, he needed to start off with something good.
It didn’t look like such a good start on Thursday, when Harvick missed NASCAR media day and both practices and had to go to a backup car because Richard Childress Racing teammate Clint Bowyer wrecked his primary.
But with color back in his face, it was obvious from the start of Saturday’s race that Harvick had the “rocket” to beat. He led 21 laps with speed and handling he seldom had a year ago, even when he won this race.
“I don’t know how fast we were going, but it sure felt like we were going fast compared to normal,” Harvick said. “The cars felt fast, but they also were very forgiving. I could be aggressive with my car. Even when we got sideways I could stay on the gas.” ESPN
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NASCAR Budweiser Shootout at Daytona - Race Results
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