From among the heap of Sunday's Busch Clash emerged one distinct and undisputed winner -- non-profit organizations. Sheet metal off race cars has been known to pull a pretty penny at auctions and charity events and, with that in mind, Sunday was Christmas morning and The Clash was Santa Claus.
Eighteen cars started the race. Twelve of them didn't see the end. Of the six still running Denny Hamlin was a lap down and torn to hell due to a crash of his own, yet he still had enough to shove teammate Erik Jones to the win. Even in victory Jones' Toyota looked as if it came from the Daytona Auto Mall with three previous owners and a story to tell.
I've always thought attrition races are good races; this was no exception. The Sith lords of NASCAR Twitter will tell you otherwise, but who cares -- it was enjoyable for a Sunday afternoon. After all, the Clash is an All-Star race. It's not to be taken too seriously. It's the under-card, the warm-up act, the build-up. It's supposed to be fun and entertaining and, well, it was.
And our local motorsports charities now have met their year's quota and we haven't even rolled out the heavyweights. Thank you, Daytona, for your in-kind contribution.
In related news, someone was clearly entertained by the Busch Clash...
(Credit: Instagram @mrsamyearnhardt)
Brad Keselowski is trying to do everything right, but so far Daytona Speedweeks for him has been unruly and miserable.
First, he sustained damage in a practice incident Saturday that was downright weird. When exiting the garage, he clipped a fence post -- a minor altercation by anyone's standards if not for the fact fence posts are grounded in concrete. The crew spent the rest of the day repairing their Daytona 500 primary.
Then on Sunday in the crash-filled Clash, he was a contender until a blocking move by his teammate, Joey Logano, on Kyle Busch caused a big pileup. Keselowski couldn't avoid it, neither on the track or in the media bullpen afterwards when didn't mince words.
By the way, NASCAR has full video of Keselowski's in-car camera on its YouTube page and it's worth a watch to see the wreck from Keselowski's vantage point (start at 1:07.37). You can determine for yourself if Logano was too aggressive in his blocking.
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