NASCAR Xfinity Series regular Justin Haley finished a career-best second Friday night at Daytona International Speedway in the rain-delayed Circle K Firecracker 250 Xfinity Series race. But that wasn’t the highlight of his Daytona race weekend. That came Sunday when he claimed his first-career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win in the weather-delayed and rain-shorted Coke Zero Sugar 400, his third-career Cup Series race. Sunday’s win also was the first for first-year team, Spire Motorsports.
“It's absolutely a blessing,” Haley said. “It’s pretty incredible that I have so many great people around me that have given me this opportunity to come here to this level and stage that we are performing on. Obviously, Todd (Braun, Haley’s uncle and former NASCAR Xfinity Series team owner) and my family have done a great job, but the Fraternal Order of Eagles has given me this opportunity with Spire Motorsports and it’s truly a blessing. I never even saw myself running a Cup race until I got a call a few months ago to do Talladega. It's just unreal, and I don't know how to put it. I don't know how to feel.”
The Coke Zero Sugar 400 was scheduled to be a Saturday night race, but weather forced the postponement to Sunday afternoon. With Haley’s win, the delayed and shortened race was the second-consecutive that produced a first-time winner, following Alex Bowman’s win the previous weekend at Chicagoland Speedway.
Hendrick Motorsports duo William Byron and Jimmie Johnson finished second and third. Chevrolet swept the top-four of the finishing order with Ty Dillon in fourth. Ford driver Ryan Newman rounded out the top-five.
The race, scheduled for 160 laps, already was under caution for a 17 car crash that occurred on lap 119 after a failed attempt by Austin Dillon to block Clint Bowyer. Other drivers involved included Joey Logano, Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin, Alex Bowman, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Kyle Larson, among others.
“I guess he [Dillon] didn’t want me to pass him,” Bowyer said. ”I don’t know. I got under him, and he blocked, and we got together. I got off of him. Moved down and got off of him, and here he comes back down even more and just finally wrecked us all. That’s just part of racing like this.”
The race, which was scheduled for a 160-lap distance, was red-flagged for a lightning advisory and after caution laps brought the field to the completion of lap 127. Rain followed on a portion of the race track, and after a delay of over two hours, the race was called official.
On the same lap as the big crash, Kevin Harvick hit the wall because of a tire problem. Harvick already had been involved in a caution, making contact with Brad Keselowski that resulted in a Keselowski spin in a failed drafting attempt. That incident resulted in Keselowski’s retirement from the race.
“I know I was going straight one moment, and the next moment, I wasn’t,” Keselowski said. ”It’s unfortunate. We were all two and three-wide racing and just got tagged from the back. I’m not sure exactly. I know we got to three-wide at the top of three and it looks like Kevin gave me a real straight push. I don’t know. It just took off on me. The Fords were working really hard to run together and Kevin, and Joey and [Ryan] Blaney and myself, I thought we were doing really good at it, but for whatever reason, the car just instantly turned, there. It’s a bummer for everybody, but we’ll move on and, hopefully, go to the next one and be alright.”
After the 17-car pileup, Kurt Busch was up front. Busch had just gotten back on the lead lap after going lap down because spin because of a blown tire on lap 75. At first, he opted to stay out as his team expected inclement weather to arrive. They gave up that thought, though, when they wrongfully though the race would resume. Busch pitted late in the caution, turning the lead over to Haley, who also hadn’t pitted during the caution. After pitting, Busch was 10th when the race was called official.
Members of each manufacturer camp worked together throughout the race, Ford and Chevrolet most successfully.
Ford was tops in the first of two 50-lap stages. Joey Logano, after starting on the pole, led 35 laps of the opening stage. He lost the lead to fellow-Ford driver Harvick during a cycle of green-flag pit stops just before lap 40, but on the final lap of the stage, Stenhouse gave Logano a push to the lead and the stage win. Fords were in the top-four when the opening stage closed.
“I thought things were gonna go a little better today than they ended up,” Logano said. ”We were able to get a stage win, which was great for our Mustang, but everything was going good until it didn’t.”
Chevrolet, led by Austin Dillon, dominated the second stage after Dillon took the lead by getting in front of Bowyer on a restart following a lap-58 caution because of a Stenhouse spin in a poorly-executed attempt to block Kurt Busch.
Dillon led 39 laps of the second stage, and when that stage ended at lap 100, Chevrolets were in the top-four positions, with the Hendrick trio of Bowman, Byron and Elliott in the second through fourth positions.
Other top-10 finishers included Corey LaJoie in sixth, Almirola seventh, Matt DiBenedetto eighth and Matt Tifft ninth.
“I couldn’t see anything in the crash other than crap everywhere, so I listened to Doug [Campbell, spotter] 100 percent,” DiBenedetto said. “I went wherever he told me. He said go low, and I just slammed it down on the apron and hoped no one was underneath me. There wasn’t and we avoided it somehow, so Doug gets credit for that one.”
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