Kyle Busch Wins a Wild Budweiser Shootout

DAYTONA BEACH, FL – RIS – Kyle Busch won a wild Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway after spinning out several times. Busch won the exhibition race that once was for the previous year’s pole sitters in an improbable way, passing Tony Stewart at the start-finish line for the win.

Marcos Ambrose finished third with Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin rounding out the top five. Greg Biffle, Ryan Newman, Clint bowyer, Carl Edwards, and Juan Montoya made up positions 6-10.

A new rules package for the 2012 season, including the first-time use of electronic fuel injection, gave the drivers less downforce. A smaller spoiler and lessened cooling properties were designed to keep the drivers from “pushing” each other around the track to gain speed. In 2012, the races at Daytona and its sister track, Talladega Superspeedway, had become a series to two cars locked up nose to tail. NASCAR polled the fans, and they said they didn’t like it. The changes seemed to work as little of the “two-car tango” could be seen on this night. It was back to what was called “pack racing” with nearly the whole field close together. The result was multi-car accidents, and there were plenty of them.

It only took eight laps for the first incident to occur, when David Ragan turned Paul Menard. Michael Waltrip, Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth, and Juan Pablo Montoya had no place to go. It was soon discovered that pushing another driver on the left side of the bumper would cause a spin and it happened over and over on the night. Ragan, Waltrip, and Martin would be out of the race.

“Everybody was real racy and I just got into the back of Menard, Ragan said. “You get a good run and you’re pushing a little bit and I guess he was pushing whoever was in front of him and when you’ve got the meat in between the sandwich you usually get wrecked. If I would have known that he was pushing the car in front of him, I probably could have backed off a little bit, but just probably pushing a little too hard.”

Dale Earnhardt, Jr. took the lead on Lap 16 to the cheers of the crowd, but like most leads on this night, it didn’t last very long. Kevin Harvick would soon take the lead, but it was Jamie McMurray blowing past him to lead at the intermission—Lap 25.

After the intermission, Earnhardt took the lead again, but the racing was so close that by Lap 28 of the second segment, Greg Biffle was in the lead. At Lap 31, another multi-car accident involving the two Michael Waltrip Racing drivers slowed the field. Pollsitter Martin Truex spun teammate Clint Bowyer.

For awhile it looked like Earnhardt, Montoya, and McMurray would swap the lead every 100 yards, but Kevin Harvick took the lead at Lap 47. The next lap, Kyle Busch made one of the most spectacular saves in the history of the Shootout, and that allowed McMurray to retain the lead. With 25 laps to go, Jeff Gordon took a strong car to the front, and looked to be the odds-on favorite, but like all things that seem certain at Daytona; it was short-lived as Harvick passed him the next lap.

Just three laps later, Marcos Ambrose nudged Joey Logano and set off a six-car pileup that involved Earnhardt, Truex, Harvick, and once again, Kenseth. Only Ambrose was able to continue.

“It looked to me like the No. 9 got into the left-rear of the No. 20,” Harvick said. It just takes a little bit of patience and a little bit of thinking on the parts of everybody on the race track. All the wrecks tonight have been caused by people hitting in the left-rear.”

The race became stable after that with a group of cars breaking away with Tony Stewart in the lead and Kyle Busch pushing him. With just over one lap to go, Jeff Gordon, trying to push Kyle Busch up the track to get past him and challenge Stewart for the lead, turned the No. 18 driver and the result was the destruction of the cars of Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch, and McMurray. Gordon had moved up the track after contacting Busch and into the path of Busch. Gordon’s car slid on its side for awhile and then moved down the track and barrel-rolled several times. No one was hurt. All of these cars were retired for the night.

“We had ourselves in a good position with Jimmie (Johnson) behind us,” Gordon said. “And then the No. 18 (Kyle Busch) got a run and got in front of us and I was on his bumper. Every time I got to him and was pushing him he started getting out of control and we got into (Turn) 3 and he started to lose it. I went to go around him and two guys were on the outside of me and I collected them and turned me into the wall and then I was just along for the ride.”

Since the caution came had come out, it was going to be a green-white-checker finish—two laps of intense racing. The front four were Stewart, Kyle Busch, Marcos Ambrose, Bowyer, and Ambrose. Ambrose was immediately pushed into the lead, and led for a lap, but soon after, it was the two cars of Stewart and Busch who took the lead on the last lap. Busch had pushed Stewart, but as the cars came out of the fourth turn and onto the tri-oval, Busch made his move and nudged Stewart at the line. It was the closest finish in the history of the Shootout.