2017 Daytona 500 Recap: What a Wreckfest

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog. I hope you all watched and enjoyed the 2017 Daytona 500. Man what a race. It was for sure filled with a lot of great racing, and a lot of wrecks. Yes, wrecks were a big talk coming out of this weekends action as the Xfinity and Truck Series races were also filled with big crashes. The Xfinity race had 3 big crashes, and two red flags to make the race run for a little over 3 hours. And Ryan Reed would come out of the action to win his second race at Daytona. Well let's recap the Daytona 500. When I last left, I had recapped the clash and previewed the Can Am Duels. Chase Elliott won the first duel and Denny Hamlin won the second after a last lap pass on a dominating Dale Earnhardt Jr. Kaz Grala in the #33 truck won a wild Truck Series race which saw 2-time champ Matt Crafton flip over on his roof and land on Johnny Sauter's tailgate in a stunning last lap crash.

The winner of the first stage of the 500 was the #18 M&M's Toyota Camry driven by Kyle Busch. He led Kevin Harvick and the rest of the field to the green and white checkered flag to signify the end of the first stage.

The first incident came early in stage 1 as the first group of cars came into the pits before pit road would be closed before the stage would end. As shown in the picture above, courtesy of Google images, as #83 Corey Lajoie came in the pits, he would carry way too much speed and almost collide with newcomer to the #14 Clint Bowyer. Both drivers were ok however Lajoie would be out of the race following NASCAR's new damage rule for this year. If your car cannot be repaired on pit road, then you are out of the race.

The first big crash came out in the second stage as stage 1 winner Kyle Busch would blow a tire going into turn 3 causing a 6 car crash. Drivers involved included the returning Dale Earnhardt Jr and rookies Eric Jones and Ty Dillon. All drivers were ok.

The winner of stage 2 would be none other then the #4 Jimmy John's Ford of Kevin Harvick after he finished second in the first stage. But his luck would run out in the final stage.

The second big crash came out shortly after the start of the final stage which would be the last 80 laps of the Great American Race. Jamie McMurray would make a bold move on the backstretch as he would have a run to the outside of 7-time champ Jimmie Johnson and eventually cause a multi car wreck into turn 3. McMurray had been making aggressive moves and it would eventually cost him a shot at his second Daytona 500. Drivers involved include stage 2 winner Kevin Harvick, Chris Buescher, Clint Bowyer, and Martin Truex Jr.

As we continue the topic of crashes, another big wreck came out with 58 laps to go. And Jamie McMurray would be the one to cause the crash after another aggressive move on Chase Elliott on the backstretch. The wreck included another 10 cars to send to the garage.

At the end of the day, we would once again see a first time 500 winner as Kurt Busch would make a last lap pass on Kyle Larson to win the race. So Busch will be in the 2017 playoffs. Yes playoffs as the name was changed from Chase to playoffs.



Well I hope everybody enjoyed. It was a crazy race filled with crashes but at the end of the race we saw an emotional reaction from Kurt's crew chief known as the "old man" Tony Gibson. I must note that all pictures come from Google Images. That's all for now. I will try to recap each race this year. Have a great week everyone. Good night.