Four feet was the distance between the winner and second place in the NextEra 250 at Daytona International Speedway in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS).
Timothy Peters had the lead going into the last four laps but it was a move by Kyle Busch at the last second that enabled him to get past Peters and win the race by .016 seconds!
There were two lines of racing throughout much of the contest with not much movement throughout the race. The top line didn’t work as well as the bottom groove as far as aerodynamics so racing sort of stalled as the laps ticked down.
Pole-sitter Ben Kennedy had the lead through the first 50 laps. A caution came out for Jennifer Jo Cobb as she ran out of gas. Kennedy couldn’t get his truck fired after the pit stop and couldn’t maintain speed coming out of the pits which put Kyle Busch to the lead.
The big one happened on lap 74 when it appeared that Ross Chastain was attempting to give Parker Kligerman a push in turn two when Kligerman got loose and got into the truck of Mason Mingus. This caused a 16-truck crash. While Mingus took the hardest hit, he was able to walk away from the crash as did all other drivers involved.
When the green flag came back out, Kyle Busch maintained the lead. A quick caution came out for engine trouble in Travis Kvapil’s machine with 14 laps to go in the race.
As the tempo picked up and more “bump drafting” started to happen, Ryan Truex made a charge on the outside lane and made it to the front of the pack. Timothy Peters was able to quickly jump from the bottom line to get in the front of Truex and in no time Peters and Busch were nose to nose. Peters was able to get to the lead and went to the bottom lane and blocked Busch. On the last lap and running in second, Busch was able to make his move and jumped to the outside lane and was able to snag the victory by .016 seconds. The margin of victory was the eighth closest finish of all-time in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, and the closest in series history at Daytona International Speedway.
With this win, Kyle Busch is the first driver to have won at Daytona International Speedway in the ARCA, NASCAR Nationwide, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, and the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It was his 36th career win in the truck series.
Top 10: Kyle Busch, Timothy Peters, Johnny Sauter, Ryan Truex, Ron Hornaday, Jr., Ryan Blaney, Jeb Burton, Joe Nemecheck, Jimmy Weller III, German Quiroga.
The next race in the NCWTS will be Mar. 29 at Martinsville Speedway.
