February 17, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Chris Buescher delivers the sweep of the Duels for Roush Fenway Keselowski

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.—Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing made a clean sweep of the Duels with Chris Buescher grabbing the lead for the win on the last lap of the second Daytona 500 qualifier.

The second contest nearly mirrored the first with Joey Logano leading a pack of four Fords for 26 of the final 27 laps—until he blocked Buescher on the backstretch and was punted into the wall.

Buescher held the point for his first Daytona qualifier win as the second Bluegreen Vacation Duel ended under caution. The sweep marked the first for an organization since Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson pulled off the feat for Hendrick Motorsports in 2015.

“This is awesome,” Buescher said. “What a great start for RFK and with all the hard work the guys have put in to get this thing going. Everybody back here has worked so hard in the off-season. For us to put it in victory lane is just an awesome start for the entire organization. We have good hot rods here. They are fast and they handle good.

“I knew we were in good shape that whole race and we were able to lead a lot early. (Michael) McDowell stuck with us. All the Fords were doing a good job. We caught a lap car there and just went to pull below. I hate to have any contact coming down to the end of the Duels but I am just so proud of everybody. It is a really neat way to start this thing off.”

Defending Daytona 500 winner McDowell finished second followed by Harrison Burton and Kyle Busch—who was 20.213-seconds behind the leader when the yellow lights ignited.

“Way too eventful at the end there,” McDowell said. “I mean, coming to the white I kind of knew Joey was gonna be aggressive. He always is, which he’s consistent. He always goes for it and I knew he would, but I thought, ‘Man, we’ve got four Fords up front here. We don’t have to do anything too wild,’ but it got wild obviously. Thankful to miss it there by just a matter of inches.”

Christopher Bell, Martin Truex Jr., Bubba Wallace, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Logano and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top 10.

Greg Biffle, who returned to Cup competition following a five-year hiatus, finished 13th to lock in the unchartered No. 44 New York Racing team into the Great American Race.

"It feels really good," said the 52-year-old veteran. "I'll tell you, I have not slept much in the last couple of days just trying to keep a cool composure. I've been nervous about this race because there's so many things that can happen and so many ways it can go. We've talked the scenarios all the way, and I watched the first race and I saw the 62 car was in the lead of the cars, and I thought, well, if he finishes in front of those guys and the 50 actually runs in the second race, we'll be in on time.

"Just figuring all those scenarios. But the car drove really, really good. We ran up in the top 10 there, 12th or whatever, ended up finishing 14th. We had a little bit of a hiccup trying to put fuel in on pit road and lost the draft, so we were able to kind of work our way back in there. Maybe that was good for us because we missed that wreck towards the end, so we might have been in the middle of that.

"Really excited for Grambling University, and this Childress-Hendrick combination really worked for us. We're excited about it."

Logano led a race-high 33 laps. He and Alex Bowman, the polesitter for the second Duel, traded the lead five times in the first 11 laps. By Lap 14, Jacques Villeneuve was lapped. Fifteen laps in, three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin told his crew he didn’t like the “energy” of the pack and wanted out. Both he and Bowman dropped to the rear before the first round of pit stops.

Hamlin spun entering pit road with his Toyota teammates on Lap 26. Bowman came on the next circuit. The Fords pitted on Lap 34 and Logano cycled to the lead. Quickly, the Fords broke away from the field. Logano appeared to have the win in hand until the last lap where an ill-timed block ended badly for the Team Penske racer.

“Driver screwed up,” said Logano, who will have to go to a backup car for Sunday. “That’s really all there is to it. I thought I was still clear and the run came a lot quicker than I thought it would.

“I tried to block it a little bit and just got a tag in the left-rear and off it went. It’s my fault. It stinks because it tore up our car and kind of puts us in a spot as a race team. It’s just a dumb mistake.”